


Lethe

by Eridans



Series: rivers [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, WWII, culture shocked!nico di angelo, italian!nico di angelo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:23:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eridans/pseuds/Eridans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's ten and ninety simultaneously, his mother was murdered and his sister is a stranger. He's got a deck of cards that he holds onto like a lifeline and an Italian-English dictionary that's old as hell and crumbling, but it's not as old as he is, and that makes him laugh. </p><p>The River Lethe was supposed to take away their memories, but Nico remembers his past, his days at home, the times he spent with his sister and mother at parades Mussolini hosted, where Maria sang the national anthem. The river tried to take away everything Nico cherished, and it could have been pure desperation or grief that made him remember his past.</p><p>Nico didn't know.</p><p>-----------SEQUEL 'ACHERON' POSTED.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> // headcanon of mine? unknown pairings, unknown how far this will go. updates soon. i dont own pjo. 
> 
> edit: most of this background for nico is created by me, and most of it is pretty self explanatory and within the realms of canon. 
> 
> the next story to this series, name undecided as of 12/2016, will cover more of nico's background, his family, his relations and meetings with hades, and the rest of the series.
> 
> if anything pjo is incorrect, that is because i don't have any of the books and is mostly relying on my memory and the wiki. i may edit this story at a later date to correct some of these follies, but as of now i have no plans to.

lethe

_what if_

**nico di angelo**

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

Bianca is shoved into the river first.

 

The river wasn’t pretty. It had faces streaming through its current, its roars were no more of it smashing against the rocks then screams for help. There were bodies at the bottom and pairs of shoes left on the riverbank.

 

Bianca fights against the water for a few seconds, but Nico watches as her eyes widen underwater but close just as quickly. Bianca is... _different_ when she’s picked out by the lawyer, who grabs Bianca’s arm and pulls her out just as roughly as Bianca was thrown in. Bianca was soaked to the bone with her clothes dripping milky white water onto the ground around her, her smile was the one she always wore when something hadn’t gone her way. Something settles in Nico’s stomach that made him feel like he swallowed a rock.

 

Something wasn’t _right._

 

The lawyer came toward Nico next, and Nico stepped back once to avoid her. “W-What’s this river called?” He sputtered out, staring at Bianca from over the lawyer’s shoulder. He didn’t know what was wrong with the river, he didn’t want to come out like Bianca did.

 

The lawyer hissed.

 

(Nico had a feeling she wasn’t _actually_ a lawyer.)

 

“Lethe,” was the short answer, and Nico didn’t have time to move away again before two clawed hands grabbed his shoulders and shoved him in.

 

The river _burned._

 

It felt like there were hands grabbing him and nails dragging across his skin. The river got into his mouth, eyes, drowning him, and kept screaming in his ears, _“Forget! Forget!”_

 

Nico didn’t want to forget- he didn’t even know what he was _supposed_ to forget.

 

(It was almost that easy, for Nico to give it the insignificant memories, the ones where if he had to give up any, he’d gladly get rid of them. The river made him forget his favorite color, the last meal he ate, useless memories it wants, but it didn’t push for all his memories and it only pushed for a few, so Nico let it have those. Nico thought it was just that easy. **_It wasn’t._ ** )

 

The lawyer grabbed him by his leg, and Nico could breathe again.

.

* * *

 

.

 

The hotel feels like a dream, and Nico thinks it is.

 

His room he shares with Bianca, with two beds and a view, is too nice to be real. He didn’t know how he got there, he didn’t know what day it was, but whenever he asked Bianca she shrugged as well.

 

“I don’t know,” became a familiar answer.

 

It could have been a week, probably a month (Nico thinks it’s a month) of running around and having fun. Everyday there seemed to be something new, and people were always coming in, but never leaving.

 

(Nico thought it was quite peculiar, but never mentioned it.)

 

There were new games to play, a waterslide (had that always been there?), movies and food and drinks- when the lawyer comes to get them, the same one who pushed Nico and his sister into a river for some reason Nico still can’t decipher, he doesn’t want to leave with her.

 

Bianca is on his side.

 

The lawyer just hisses again, that same strange hiss that makes his arm hair stand up, and she grabs Nico and Bianca by the shoulder and leads them out. He doesn’t remember what came next. Perhaps they were in a car? Plane? It was all a fuzzy blur, but then suddenly Nico and Bianca were at a military school in Maine (weren’t they in New York before? He wasn’t sure) and then the lawyer was gone.

 

Boys are on one side, girls on the other, and Nico and Bianca separated.

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

It doesn’t take long for Nico to be set on edge.

 

The lights are nice, very nice, nicer and brighter and more clean than any Nico has seen before, in Italy or New York or otherwise. There’s some kind of clock on his bed that has numbers instead of a face, and there’s a cord connecting it to the wall that Nico can plug and unplug and which seems to turn the clock on and off, and Nico’s just as confused about the switches on the wall as he is the slits that admit heat and air on the floor and ceiling.

 

(It’s a good thing that he had his own room.)

 

They haven’t started school yet, but he has a tourguide come to his room, a kid his age, with a name and face forgettable. He’s shown around the school; the classrooms, the gardens, the cafeteria, and Nico wants to blurt out so many questions but he holds his tongue.

 

His gut hadn’t failed him yet, and he figured asking _“What are those strange contraptions on the walls?”_ would make him stand out far more than he’d like.

 

Nico’s brought to the library, and while Nico is lost among the books, his tourguide leaves him.

 

It’s probably for the best.

 

Nico sits down at the table in the back, with three fictional books he had picked out, and started to read. He’s five sentences in before he stumbles on an unfamiliar word- he doesn’t know if it’s some new slang or what, so he wanders around the library looking for an Italian-English dictionary (Bianca had picked up the language easier than he had) and ends up stumbling onto the librarian and the newspaper section.

 

He takes one look at the date of the newest paper in the librarian’s hands, and turns back to the shelves, towards the history section.

 

(He wondered if the date _August 23, 2010_ was just a joke, but he just knew it couldn’t be.)

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

Nico stops Bianca that night at dinner, and pulls her to the library.

 

“Nico, what are you doing?” She asked him quickly, in Italian, glancing over her shoulder at the girls huddled by the entry staircase.

 

“Do you know what today’s date is?” Nico demanded, showing her his table full of history books that he admittedly hadn’t read more than a couple sentences in. He just wished they were in Italian.

 

Bianca gave him a funny look. “What does it matter?”

 

“It’s 2010.” Nico breathed. “Bianca, it’s _2010.”_

 

“And?” Her forehead wrinkled.

 

Nico’s mouth dropped open, and his own eyebrows furrowed together. “We’re in the future! Somehow we’re in 2010, and that explains so much of it, doesn’t it? Like the lights, the drinks, what those strange machines were in the dining room-” His hands waved around, the more excited he had got. “I don’t know how we got here, are we even here? But this is strange-”

  
“Nico, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

He froze. “What?”

 

“We haven’t time traveled.”

 

 _“What?”_ Nico repeated just as blandly.

 

“Nothing like that has happened.” Bianca shook her head, glancing over at him before back at the door. “We’ve always been here. We’ve lived our entire lives with those things, Nico.”

 

“But then what about Mamma?” Nico got angry. “How can you say that? The building exploded and then Babbo sent us with that lawyer and now somehow we’re here-”

 

“Mama died in a car crash!” Bianca slammed her hands on the table. “We don’t have a dad!”

 

_(Was it the Lethe that did this?)_

 

Nico was speechless for a couple of seconds, just long enough for Bianca to breath out loudly and turn on her heel towards the door.

 

“We were born in 1998 and 2000, Nico. Whatever you’re doing that’s making you think otherwise, _stop it.”_ She left, slamming the door of the library behind her.

 

Nico looked down at the books in front of him, and gathered them up his arms.

 

“Can I check these out?” He asked quietly to the disgruntled librarian, who had watched them the entire time, although not understanding what their fight was about.

 

“History books?” One eyebrow flew up. “Interesting read.”

 

Nico gave her a closed mouth smile. "Just curious."

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

Lethe, Nico found out, was the River Lethe in Greek mythology. It was the river of forgetfulness and concealment.

 

(It was all very suspicious.)

 

 

There was a lot that he had to remember.

 

There was even more that Nico had to learn about the past century.

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

When school started, Bianca kept up easily. It was almost like the information the teachers were sprouting out was just automatically inputted into her brain. She knew algebra, geometry, the history of the Vietnam War, Harry Potter, the discovery of evolution and even the _polio vaccine._

 

When Nico heard about that from her, when he briefly stopped her and asked her about her classes, his brain short circuited. There was no _polio vaccine._

 

School began the day after their fight, and Nico was having trouble keeping up.

 

Math came easily for him, and math was logical. Math didn’t _change._ Numbers were the same in every century. History was the United States history, and although Nico was clueless about a lot of the finer details, he knew some of it from what his mother and father had told him on the brief times they’d touched upon the subject. Literature, English, wasn’t too bad. Short stories by people who were younger than him yet sixty-five made his head hurt, but there was always something he could grab onto with dear life and stay with that to make it through the book.

 

Science had him in tears.

 

He knew everything up to 1940- all the scientific discoveries, all the finer laws- Maria was a busy singer with a lot of money to her name that she used on her kids, and Nico remembered his lessons with his tutors like they were weeks ago.

 

(Technically, to him, they were less than two months ago.)

 

Nico knew penicillin. It was the newest thing that was going to save millions of lives. But then there was something called DNA, and the _polio vaccine,_ and cellular reactions; cloning, a new planet, dark energy, and stem cells, and Nico set his head in his hands the second he heard of humans on the moon, and waited until he heard the dismissal of the bell.

 

It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be possible, and yet it _was._

 

Nico felt reality hit him like a brick wall.

 

_This can’t be real._

 

 _This can’t be_ possible.

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

Nico’s next door neighbor was a boy with red hair and freckles and a terrible habit of stuttering, but Nico found him enjoyable to be around none the less.

 

His name was Anthony and he played _Mythomagic,_ and Nico looked at the game and at his old history textbooks that he couldn’t quite read, not with the lack of translator, and decided to play. Nico thought this was one of his better moves.

 

There were things like _attack points,_ and _skill levels,_ and Nico didn’t care quite so much about that as he did listening to Anthony go on about the Gods and Goddesses.

 

“So what about Hades?” Nico asked.

 

“Hades is s-super powerful!” Anthony squealed. “He’s the Lord of the Dead, and he rules the underworld!”

 

“Underworld?”

 

“Yeah! T-There are a bunch of places where the dead go- like p-punishments and islands where you can be reborn- that’s what I’ve read a-anyways.”

 

Nico’s gut stirred. “Any rivers down there?”

 

Anthony’s forehead wrinkled. “I m-mean, there could be?” He seemed curious for a second, before taking out something small and rectangular from his pocket. Nico’s eyes widened substantially at it, as Anthony caught him looking at it.

 

“I k-know, cool isn’t it?” Anthony beamed. “My m-mom got me the newest version before I c-came to school.”

 

“That’s nice of her.” Nico said blankly, eyes still trained on the small device.

 

 _Was that a phone?_ You could ask questions to a phone? Was it an operator?

 

Anthony touched a couple buttons- there were no real buttons, not like a typewriter, but he seemed to be searching for something on it. Nico almost wanted to look, but he had a terrible enough headache as it was. There was a second where Anthony was reading something, before he nodded to himself. “A-According to this site, there _are_ rivers in the Underworld!” Anthony seemed pleased. “There’s Cocytus, P-Phlegethon, Styx, Lethe, and Acheron.”

 

“Fascinating.” Nico mumbled.

 

“I think it is.” Anthony put away his phone. “S-So what were we t-talking about? O-Oh! Hades! I l-like him, he’s pretty cool you know-”

 

Nico couldn’t remember what his dad’s name was, and Nico thought that was awfully suspicious.

 

(Maybe the Lethe took more of his memories then he thought.)

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

Nico spends the free time after school on his second day in the library.

 

He stumbles around the empty library for an hour, looking at all the dusty tall books that he’d never make a head or tail of, before he resigned defeat and went up to the librarian and asked, “Excuse me, do you have any Italian to English dictionaries?”

 

The librarian peered at him from over her small nose, and she looked almost like the lawyer for a second with that stare (Nico half expected her to start hissing), before she turned to the odd giant machine in front of her and typed something in.

 

(It was like an advanced typewriter, Nico figured, but he made a mental note to himself to researching the inventions of the past century.)

 

“We do happen to have one.” She glanced at him. “You’re in luck. I’ll grab it for you, it’s in the back on the top shelf.”

 

_Figures._

 

Nico watched her as she grabbed a ladder and took a thick black book off the shelf, the words on it’s spine rubbed off with age, and Nico thought with both amusement and bemusement, _this book is probably younger than me._

 

She handed it to him and went back to the desk, picking up the newest newspaper _(August 25, 2010)_ and went back to ignoring him.

 

Nico was fine with that.

 

He took the book with him back to his room, after using the small checkout station that was next to the librarian’s desk (it took him a few tries), and sat down on his bedroom floor with the first history book in front of him, and began to read.

 

Three hours got him three chapters in, and half of the things he read about the war made it seem so _far away._

 

He knew Mussolini. He _met_ the man, at one of the galas or balls his mother sang at or was invited to, and he couldn’t connect the smiling man who shook his hand and made his mother blush to the man who murdered thousands and was subsequently shot to death, then stoned, spat upon, hung up, and defaced. It made it seem unreal, farfetched, that the soldiers he saw everyday outside his window in Venice were simply things he _dreamt up._ It made the war seem unreal, to hear about that happening eighty years later and not being able to _do_ anything.

 

Nico didn’t even know what he could _do._

 

_There wasn’t anything he should do._

 

(It began to sink into Nico that he was alone, in a new day and age, and nothing before mattered anymore.)

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

He moved through his classes like a zombie, rarely seeing Bianca except at meals because she was too caught up in her newfound friends to pay her younger brother any attention.

 

Nico spent most of his time around Anthony, during classes and meal times. Anthony chattered on most of the time, mostly about Mythomagic, which Nico had taken to like a moth to a flame. Anthony had given Nico his old set of cards and figurines and they often had impromptu sessions of playing the game that a couple of their classmates, like Jared and Charlie, had sat in on.

 

Time seemed to move slowly at the school, compared to the seventy years Nico had spent inside the hotel. Everyday dragged on and on, with more time spent sleeping through class after staying up late at night struggling to translate the heady books.

 

A week went by at school, although it took centuries for Nico, when Bianca came into Nico’s room one night after dinner.

 

“You need to apply yourself to school.” She said, glancing at the Mythomagic cards on the floor, and the history books under his bed. Nico was curled up on top of the covers with _Relevant Inventions of the Past Century_ in his lap. “The principal came up to me asking if I could talk to you about your schoolwork and participation.”

 

Nico blinked. _Why did the principal just ask me directly?_ “It’s doesn’t matter.” Nico dismissed. “I’m doing fine, I’d say, except for history and science.”

 

Bianca sighed. “Why are you doing so badly in science?” She questioned. “You were so good at our last school.”

  
  
Nico froze. “Our last school?”

 

Bianca nodded. “The one in New York. After our parents died in the car crash, remember? We were sent to that school, and we spent time exploring New York. Don’t you remember the National Gallery?”

 

Nico _did._ He could recall memories of running through the halls and getting lost in the subway, exploring the tourist parts of New York City, but he couldn’t remember the boarding school.

 

_Did the Lethe take this away?_

 

He stopped. “You just said our parents died in a car crash.”

 

“They did, I've said this before.” Bianca let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you going to talk about being in the future again? Nico, you can’t just-”

 

“Bianca, earlier you said we didn’t have a dad. We’ve never known our dad. How could he have died in a car crash with Mamma?”

 

Bianca’s mouth opened, and shut. She stared at him for a few seconds, before she responded, “I… don’t know.” She shook her head. “I can’t remember correctly. Anyways, don’t you remember our boarding school?”

 

“No.” He answered blandly.

 

“You don’t?”

 

“No, just as you don’t remember our parents, I don’t remember the school.” Nico stared at her hard. “Bianca, something is wrong. You've got to realize that this is just-” Nico trailed off.

 

Bianca leaned against the door. She hadn’t stepped foot into the room once, and Nico could feel the suffocating distance between them that he didn’t know if he could breach. “Something is wrong?” She repeated, glancing up at the ceiling. Her mouth was pulled tightly and her shoulders tensed as she seemed to realize something. “Nico, something is _wrong._ This doesn’t feel right. There's too many inconsistencies- _”_

 

“I know.”

 

“Then what’s wrong?” Bianca asked the air between them.

 

Nico hesitated. _She won’t believe you, just like before,_ his gut told him, and Nico bit his tongue as he told her, “I don’t know.”

 

(It was lonely without Bianca.)

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this is so late. life got way too busy! extremely busy! as in kill me now busy! thanks everyone for all the kudos and comments! i really appreciate them. also sorry for how short this is but i was like "meh. good stopping point".

 

 Nico studied and played Mythomagic throughout the following days- his fingers knew the cards just as well as they knew the dusty pages of the Italian-English dictionary.

 

There was a dance going to be held at the end of the month, to celebrate the start of a successful school year. To Nico, the way the year had come along was like pulling teeth. It felt like it was never going to end.

 

Bianca, he knew, was excited for the dance. They had only spoken twice since that second day of school, and Nico spent as much time as he could in the library, not to ignore her, at least not that he would admit.

 

Being near Bianca was like being at home after someone else had lived there. It wasn’t any different on the outside, and the inside was mostly unchanged, but there was something different hanging in the air that had warped it beyond the point to where home was almost not recognizable to Nico. Bianca was different, like a similar but not quite the same- a forgery of the real person.

 

She was still his sister, but there was nothing to talk to her about, nothing he could share about his finds on the past century that she wouldn’t dismiss or look at him oddly for. He couldn’t ask her about the Greek mythology, about their life at home in Venice, she just wouldn’t listen. She knew something was wrong, but she didn’t know _what_ was wrong, and that was useless to Nico.

 

Nico wasn’t excited for the dance, and was hesitant to see his sister there. He didn’t have a choice.

 

Anthony dragged him to the dance- not to ogle girls, no, they were ten and that was far too gross for them- because that was how they were going to get dinner that night, and while Nico certainly had started to look like he’d skipped one too many meals, Anthony wouldn’t.

 

“C-Come _on_.” Anthony pleaded. “We just g-go in, get the f-food, and get out.”

 

Nico didn’t seem so convinced. He looked around at the entrance of the dance, which had barely started, and the people inside. Most of them seemed to be older students, like Bianca’s group and another group of boys that Nico had briefly seen in the halls. “Are we even allowed in?”

 

“It’s a s-school dance.” Anthony told him. “Haven’t you e-ever been to one? They’re open to the entire s-school.”

 

“Oh.” Nico said. “No, I haven’t.”

 

Anthony shrugged. “A-Ah, well, let’s just g-get some food.”

 

Nico and Anthony slid across the walls, trying to avoid the groups in the middle. It wasn’t hard for Nico to spot Bianca in the midst; she was wearing a bright yellow floppy hat that Nico had never seen before. A boy and his friend were standing close to her, whispering anxiously to each other, shooting glances at Bianca, which had all of Bianca’s friends laughing.

 

“Neither of them better try and flirt with my sister.” Nico mumbled under his breath, scowling at the two.

 

“W-What?” Anthony asked, as they approached the food table.

 

Nico shook his head. “Nothing.” He waved Anthony off.

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

It wasn’t nothing, Nico learned. So maybe they didn’t hit on his sister, but the two definitely changed the game.

 

Dr. Thorn was killed by some kid (the same one with his friend who had _goat legs-_ Nico knew because of Anthony that the goat guy was a _satyr_ ) and their friend had fallen off a cliff, and suddenly there were Huntresses and his sister was going with them and he couldn’t come with, and it was too much for Nico.

 

Nico, the forgotten kid who was curled up next to the goat-boy, who had introduced himself as Grover,shuffled his Mythomagic cards in his hands absentmindedly as he watched the other boy, Percy, argue with the Huntresses. Nico didn’t even look at his sister when she left with some of the girls, although he knew that she looked back at him.

 

There was too much going on, and Nico was told kindly by Grover to go grab his things from his room before he left.

 

“We’re not coming back?” Nico asked.

 

Grover shook his head. “Sorry, kid- uhm, what was your name again?” Grover seemed sheepish. Goatish. Whichever. “You’re coming with us to Camp, it’s a place for people like you.”

 

 _Time travelers?_ Nico wanted to blurt out.

 

“Nico Di Angelo.” He told Grover. “And what kind of people am I?” Nico nearly groaned at his grammar, it didn’t sound right to his ears and embarrassed him slightly. _Just when I thought I was getting a hang of English._

 

“Halfbloods- sons and daughters of the Gods and Goddesses.”

 

“Greeks.” Nico filled in.

 

“Yeah.” Percy shuffled over to the two of them, and Nico didn’t look at the other boy. He was maybe a year older than Bianca, thirteen, and he was tall with dark wavy hair and very, very intense blue eyes. Nico nearly ran as soon as he saw him.

 

 _That’s disgusting._ He told himself. _Not natural, don’t think about it. You’re normal. Just because he’s handsome doesn’t mean anything. You're normal. You don't care._

 

“R-Right.” Nico turned. “I better grab my stuff.”

 

“Be careful.” Grover called after him, and Nico gave him a tiny smile.

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

He had three pairs of clothes, two history textbooks, _Relevant Inventions of the Past Century,_ and the Italian-English dictionary shoved in a bag he got from Anthony. His Mythomagic cards were stuffed in his jacket. As soon as Nico stepped outside he was hustled back over to the Huntresses, where he was pushed into another corner and forgotten.

 

Nico was almost used to it by now. In the back of his mind, he remembered a ball of old-time glitz at his Nonno and Nonna's manor, where he was met with applause when he entered, when he and Bianca went in matching golden outfits and Mamma sang to the amazed members of King Victor Emmanuel's court- but the memory slipped from him like water through his hands. 

 

Bianca was in a tent with Percy and the goddess Artemis, planning or plotting or something that Nico wasn’t included in and doubted he would be. Grover was napping by the fire, ignorant to some of the girls laughingly placing flowers all over him. Nico figured that when he woke up he’d be a bush.

 

There was a wide berth around Nico, but he could hear some of the whispers. “Quiet”, “shy”, “little brother” was what he heard often, and Nico bowed his head and shuffled his cards.

 

 _Halfblood._ Nico repeated in his head. _Halfblood._

 

Who was his father?

 

Nico paused his shuffling. He stood up, and headed over to Grover, and gently shook him awake, crouching around next to him. Nico felt bad for a second at the sight of Grover’s sleepy face, but there was so much missing and so much confusion running through Nico, it covered the guilt.

 

“Sorry to wake you.” Nico apologized. “Who’s my father?”

 

“Father?” Grover yawned. “It could be anyone. Hermes, Apollo, Ares-” Those didn’t sound right.

 

 _Hades._ Nico thought.

 

“What about Hades?”

 

Grover sat upright. “The Lord of the Dead?” Grover’s eyebrows raised, and he looked around for a split second. “You shouldn’t suggest such a thing.”

 

“Why not?” Nico was confused. Hades seemed right to him, he had seemed right to him ever since he first talked to Anthony about Mythomagic and that terrible River Lethe, and now that Nico was apparently related to one of them, well, it made sense didn’t it?

 

“About sixty years ago the Big Three made a pack- the Big Three being-”

 

“Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. I know.” Nico interrupted.

 

Grover nodded. “The Big Three would not have anymore children with mortals, because they were too powerful and too big of a risk. Of course, that didn’t last very long. Percy is the son of Poseidon, and there was a daughter of Zeus, Thalia, but she died four years ago.”

 

“Oh.” Nico said.

 

“Yeah, you see why you can’t say that about Hades? If you said that he didn’t keep his oath, it’d be blasphemy!”

 

Nico stood up from where he was crouching next to Grover, and dusted off his pants. “Hades kept his oath.” Nico said blandly. “Trust me, he kept it.”

 

Grover watched him in bemusement as he left.

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

The Huntresses moved fast. They got them down from Maine to New York in one day, although _how_ Nico didn’t understand (he could vaguely remember that Apollo- _the God Apollo!-_ was there, but at the same time he was quite certain that Artemis had slipped something into his drink, so), but it was an enjoyably quick ride down the coast.

 

They entered through the forest, far away from the road that Grover told Nico was due north of them. They arrived sometime in the late afternoon, when all the other campers were eating dinner, and Nico felt almost as out of place standing outside of the dining pavilion as he did his first time standing onstage helping his mother during one of his mother’s shows by playing violin.

 

He could hear the whispers of _“The Hunters!”_ and _“Percy and Grover are back!”_ but as soon as people caught sight of him their whispers were quieted and they turned back to their meals. There were many curious looks, but there was no fight to come talk to the small ten year old boy who had begun to look less then healthy.

 

Nico was too exhausted to be offended.

 

He was ushered inside of the Big House, where there was a disgruntled god- _Dionysus,_ Nico was filled with childish awe, _oh my god that’s a God-_ and a centaur waiting to introduce him, and Nico accepted to watch the welcoming video, because there wasn’t much he was too unsure about, but nothing quite distinguishably known either.

 

“So, we’ll get claimed?” Nico tested, after he watched the video. “By our parents? At some time?”

 

Chiron nodded. Nico absentmindedly wondered how the centaur got up and down stairs. “Yes. Do you by any chance have any idea who your parent could be?” Chiron asked.

 

Nico hesitated. Grover seemed offended, almost, and what if he was wrong? _(He could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.)_ “I-” He paused. “I'm not sure.” He didn't need anyone telling Hades that the dip into the river didn't work.

 

Chiron was too certain, Nico could tell by the way his eyebrows quirked downwards, just like his old math tutor did. Nico hoped the old woman was in having a good time in Heaven.

 

“Well then.” Dionysus interrupted. “Nathan, go with-oh, what’s his face- Sammy Justice.”

 

Chiron saw Nico’s puzzled look. “He means Simon Jones, one of the members of the Hermes Cabin. He'll show you around.” Chiron headed towards the door, probably to call for Simon.

 

“And my sister?” Nico couldn’t help but ask.

 

Chiron put his hand on Nico’s shoulder. “There’s nothing about her we can do, she's with the Hunters now.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello it is i, reviving from the dead. except lmao im still dead. sorry for the extreme delay!
> 
> thanks to that one person that was like "LUKE CANT BE AT CHB" i don't have any of the books and im kind of relying on whatever is left in my brain/wiki so thanks man i would have probably realized in like 2039 otherwise like "oh shit man that doesn't work".

The funny thing Nico realized about people, at least in this day and age, was how quick they were to accept _anything._ It wasn’t due to the supernatural or Gods, or anything like that, but they never questioned why he never seemed to know common knowledge.

 

Celine Dion? Well, she _was_ famous, but it wasn’t like something Nico would have died without knowing.

 

The President? Okay, that was a bit more odd, but they understood— Nico wasn’t from this country (which had gotten him a couple strange looks, some whispers- apparently Gods didn't leave America so that was another thing to make him even more abnormal), he wasn’t interested in politics, he was _ten._ They reasoned that hey, they didn’t even know who the British Prime Minister was, completely understandable.

 

Computers? That one had earned him many stares when he asked about it, but then someone mumbled something about _“Must be the Italian version of the Amish”_ and that was that. Even though computers were apparently a _very big deal_ and that everyone had one- they were an essential, they were used in anything and everything- they brushed off him not knowing about computers as easily as they had done with everything else.

 

Nico even had his spot in the corner of the Hermes Cabin, where they could see his textbooks on inventions and history, and yet they never found it suspicious or weird at all. Nico knew that Nonna would have had a fit at how ignorant the rest of the campers were being. Then again, time-travel was generally not something you came across or thought of as an everyday excuse for an oblivious kid. Nonna would find something else to yell then about the campers, he was sure, whether it was their state of dress or how terribly inconvenient it was to use bows and arrows, what age were they in, the stone age?

 

Nico paused in his musing. Nonna was long dead. She- It would never be possible for her to tell them off in one of her spectacular rants about observation or politics or one of the cooks messing up the Bûche de Noël.

 

Nico rubbed his eyes.

 

.

 

* * *

 

.

 

It was the first day for him at Camp Halfblood, after the odd stares he got from arriving the night before, and Nico already could feel the dread creeping up in his stomach.

 

The Huntresses were staying in Artemis’ Cabin, and although Bianca was somewhere with them, Nico never caught sight of her once during the day. It was almost as if she was _avoiding_ him, which was ridiculous because why would she avoid him? Unless she felt guilty for abandoning him and instead becoming essentially an immortal nun, in which case _dio la benedica,_ Bianca was the least religious one in the family, and god knows she could never follow orders, but that could never be the case, right?

 

(Nico could hold grudges longer than anyone else in the family, and that was something that wasn’t due to his father, no, that was Di Angelo through and through, no matter what people thought.)

 

With Bianca in absentia, and the lack of people watching Nico (the boy they had asked to take Nico to the Cabin had done nothing but drop him off, point out a place for him to sleep on the floor, and then left again), he was left to be an overstressed and overwhelmed ten year old left with nothing really but his _Mythomagic_ cards, and that never boded well for anybody.

 

He could go up to the Big House, Nico thought, shuffling the cards in his hand. But what would be the point? He could try and see if anyone else like the card game- Nico thought of Anthony and felt disappointed- but there was no one who wanted to talk to the kid who struck them all as _odd,_ especially since even his own sister had abandoned him.

 

(Nico had always been great at listening in to things he wished he hadn’t heard.)

 

Nico decided to go exploring instead.

 

There were the twelve cabins, the Big House, and several small shacks for Arts and Crafts and other activities, and one stable for what Nico had hoped were horses, but were pegasus’ instead. The pegasus’ didn’t like him, Nico realized, when one tried to bite his hand when he held it out for the pegasus to sniff him.

 

Other than that, there were no buildings on the property- a lake, climbing wall, archery range, and what appeared to be some kind of gladiator ring made up the rest of the camp. Nico was kind of disappointed. Yeah, the climbing wall had _lava_ pouring down from it, but Nico had been to Pompeii before and honestly, he was more scared or disturbed by the after than the during. Besides, he doubted that anyone died at camp. If they did, they were either stupid, or no one was truly watching for safety, and _that_ was stupid.

 

Overall, the camp felt like a normal camp- well, what he assumed was normal anyways. There wasn’t a camp like this in Venice; there was no need for it, he guessed. Summer camp was something he had never even really heard of before now. There was no reason to send your child away for the summer- summer they may have been let out from school if they weren’t tutored, and when you had your children home all day you’d make the most of the time spent with them planning for galas or alliances or political events. Maybe even farming, if that was what type of family you were.

 

There was no point to learn how to canoe, or scale a climbing wall as fast as possible, unless you were going to be in the military; but Nico thought that, ironically, that would never happen to him now.

 

(And, as Nonno put it, it was better to hold your cards closer to your chest then send them out into the world where anyone might take them. Nonno was a very smart man, in Nico’s opinion. And a bit cynical.)

 

Nico had wandered down to the lakefront at this point, staring into the waters where-

 

_Gesù Cristo was that a mermaid._

 

It was indeed a mermaid. It waved at him. Nico waved back after a second of hesitation.

 

Okay, that was one thing that was cool.

 

Greek Gods and Goddesses may apparently rule the world, but Nico had yet to see one in action yet, and he doubted that they were _that_ cool. And sure, satyrs were neat, but they were also kind of pointless in Nico’s opinion, like they’d be great at mountain climbing but Nico hadn’t heard of anything about Mount Everest yet, or any kind of climbing experience (they didn’t even use the climbing wall!), which was just stupid.

 

But _mermaids._ Totally pointless for them to exist, like satyrs, but if there were mermaids then there might be sirens- if there were sirens then they could be other monsters that were in the Odyssey, and if the Odyssey was right, hell, the Jules Verne could have been right with _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ , and if that was true then so could Atlantis, or fairies, or even Christ and Dante’s Inferno, possibly even all the Chinese folklore Nonna told him about-

 

But Nico tried not to get his hopes up. He had too much of that already when trying to pet the pegasus, and look at what happened to him.

  

“Hey, kid, you always this lost in thought?”

 

The voice came out of nowhere and made Nico jump.

 

It was some older girl- he didn’t know her Cabin, and he would have said Aphrodite if put on the spot, but she might have been from any old Cabin really- with brown hair and an amused look on her face, and she reminded him of Bianca for a second, if Bianca had brown hair or even looked at him fondly anymore. _I am not bitter,_ he told himself.

 

“O-Only recently.” Nico stumbled over his words. _I sound like Anthony,_ and again that sense of disappointment- fondness?- filled his gut.

 

“Whatever.” She shook her head. “Chiron asked me to bring you to the Big House.”

 

Nico frowned. “Why?”

 

“I’m just the messenger.” She said dryly, and much to his surprise, held out her hand. “Katie Gardner.”

 

Nico took it, appreciating her hard shake. “Nico di Angelo.”

 

“So, Di Angelo-” Nico didn’t understand why all Americans seemed so fond of calling others by their last names. “Any idea who your parent might be?”

 

Katie led him up from the beach to pathway towards the Big House. Nico tapped his finger against his leg once, before replying, “I’m not quite sure.” _I’m only ninety percent sure._ “It’d have to be my dad though.”

 

“Yeah?” Katie responded. “Well, by the way things are looking, you might as well be anyone’s kid.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Katie crossed her arms. “We actually have a lot of kids whose parents are minor Gods- Nike, Iris, Gods like that- but since we don’t have a Cabin for them, their parents can’t claim them officially and they have to stay in the Hermes Cabin, and there's been a recent influx of kids like that.”

 

“That’s stupid!” Nico blurted out, thinking of all the kids crammed into the Cabin, some of them new and young like him, others brooding and been at the camp for three years or more. “Why can’t there be Cabins for them?”

 

Katie shrugged. “I dunno. I think it’s ridiculous though. Couple summers ago they made a petition-”

 

Nico mentally reminded himself to look up petition in the dictionary.

 

“-but that wasn’t going to do anything, and they knew it.”

 

They were almost to the Big House now, and Nico stuck closer to Katie while passing the Artemis Cabin.

 

“That’s really stupid.” Nico repeated.

 

Katie stopped by one of the Cabins- one covered in flowers and grass on the roof, and Nico could only pity them on the amount of pollen that must be in there, they must spend an awful lot amount of time sneezing- and yelled inside, “Save me a spot at lunch!”

 

Multiple people yelled back _“Yeah, sure, fine!”_ , and Katie plowed on towards the house with Nico.

 

“Is that your Cabin?” He asked.

 

She smiled. “Yeah, Demeter. We’re a good group.” Katie turned back to look at her Cabin and half-siblings. “When you join a Cabin, you’ll really feel like a family.”

 

Nico had a feeling that that wouldn’t happen, but mumbled his agreement as they stepped onto the porch.

 

“Well, this is where I leave you. Don’t do anything that’d screw you over, Di Angelo.” Katie waved goodbye, and turned on her heel and left.

 

Nico watched her go for a second before heading into the Big House. The front hallway was empty, and so was the coat room, kitchen, parlor, and surprisingly the infirmary when Nico peered inside them. “Where’s Chiron?” He wondered, before heading back towards the front door.

 

Maybe upstairs?

 

The door to the parlor was ajar, after Nico was _sure_ he had left the door still swinging wide open. He peaked his head inside.

 

The fireplace was roaring, with a small girl poking the embers.

 

“Excuse me?” He called in. She didn’t exactly jump, but she seemed surprised by his presence.

 

“Hello.” She replied, and Nico felt warmth running through him, that wasn’t due to the large fire, but felt similar to it.

 

“Hello.” He responded. “Who are you?”

 

She smiled. Nico couldn’t exactly figure out if it was the cackling flames behind her, or his eyes were tricking him, because she seemed distinctly fuzzy at the edges, the only thing remaining clear were her eyes. “I’m Hestia, Nico di Angelo.”

 

Nico was surprised. He would have expected a God to be taller, maybe. More unearthly, besides indistinguishable characteristics, maybe a golden halo or two. Possibly wings- he was really just going off of the art he had seen in Italy.

 

“It’s nice to meet you.” Nico held out his hand to shake, as he approached her at the hearth.

 

Hestia stared at it for a second, before her smile grew wider. “You’re interesting, Nico Di Angelo.” She took his hand and shook it. “Most people don’t notice me, much less shake my hand.”

 

“They don’t notice you?” Nico asked. "Do they not shake your hand because you are a woman?"

 

“I am a Goddess, the typical response is a bow." Nico hastily gave her a bow, but she waved him off and continued, "There is less need for a Goddess of the Hearth in this age, and when people think of family and home, they think of Hera instead.”

 

The fireplace was the central part of Nico’s home- everything happened before a hearth. In the small house his mother had bought, when she first became an actress and decided to live independently, there was a fireplace in the kitchen and parlor, and Nico could remember more days spent in front of the fire than not. In Nonna and Nonno’s manor, there was a fireplace in every _room,_ but they said that was due more to the manor being built in the sixteen hundreds than anything else.

 

“That’s-” Nico paused. “Really really ridiculous.”

 

“Is it?” Hestia wondered.

 

“Yeah. What’s the point of being a demigod if you can’t even get the Gods and Goddesses right? Hera is not of the hearth or family- their praying must be very off."

 

“They have different priorities usually when praying.” Hestia pointed out. “Many of them simply want to be as normal as possible, or survive, so they don't tend to bother examining every last God and their duty.”

 

“But you’re not going to survive if you can’t even get the Gods jobs’ right. You're even one of the Twelve!” Nico protested.

 

Hestia’s smile disappeared. “They believe they’ll survive more by learning to fight instead of simply learning.”

 

“Sounds like Americans.” Nico murmured.

 

There was a knock on the door. Hestia and Nico both looked towards it. Chiron hovered in the doorway, although Dionysus wasn’t with him. “My Lady,” Chiron said pleasantly. “Would you mind if I borrowed Nico?”

 

Hestia shook her head. “Go right ahead.” She turned towards Nico. “It was wonderful to meet you, Nico di Angelo.”

 

“You too, Lady Hestia.” Nico copied Chiron's title towards her, and he waved at the Goddess before walking towards Chiron.

 

“Nico?” Hestia called out.

 

He turned. “Yes?”

 

Her eyes were brown, but Nico wasn’t sure if they were bright due to the flames or her power.

 

“Your family-” She stopped. “Everything will work out.”

  
Nico’s hands tightened into balls. He wasn’t sure if she was referring to Bianca and his father, or Mamma and Nonna and Nonno, or both. “I really hope so, Lady Hestia.” He replied, before following Chiron out the door.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this immediately after i posted the last thing, but the thing is is that im going to be gone out of the country for two weeks and i thought i could do some kind of time delay but APPARENTLY NOT, i was so excited. take this all of you and read of it, for this is my baby, which will be given up for you and for many.

It was close to midnight, but the night was still warm and his windows were wide open. One of the maids had put him to bed close to two hours ago, but the sounds of piano and laughter coming from the billiards room below kept him awake. He had tried to see if he could hear Bianca’s voice in the merriment, since she was seven and thus was able to stay up with the party (Nico was _extremely_ envious), but either the piano was too loud or there were just too many people, her voice was indistinguishable from the rest.

 

Nico sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes tiredly as a particularly loud laugh passed through the floor and walls. His throat was parched, and Nico leaned over to grab the glass of water that was sitting on his bedside table, picking it up and holding it to his lips for a second before he realized that it was empty. His was about to ring the bell for one of Nonna’s servants, but Nico realized that they probably wouldn’t hear him over the dim from downstairs. He frowned.

 

Nico pushed himself up from the bed and threw his legs over the side, staring at the doorway leading out to the hall. No one was up on the second floor just yet, he doubted, and yes Nonna might be mad if the guests caught sight of him again after he had gone to bed, but his throat was dry due to the lingering summer heat, and maybe Bianca was back, and that’d give him a good enough excuse (probably) to make his way down to the kitchen.

 

Nico’s footsteps were soft as he made his way across the floor in his light frock, the glass held loosely in his hand. The warm glow of the lights from the walls streamed underneath his doorway, and Nico only hesitated for a second before twisting the knob that was the same height as his head, and stepping out into the light.

 

The floor here was hardwood, just like Nico’s room, but much colder. Nico immediately started walking quickly as the cold steeped into his small feet. “Cold! Too cold!” He complained to himself as he walked past Bianca’s room (which was empty, as far as he could tell) and towards the servants’ staircase at the other end. He passed by empty rooms that were soon to be filled by important guests, and the library and office that his Nonno liked to frequent on the windy afternoons.

 

Nico stopped by his mother’s room and pulled open the door, peeking his head it. The lamps were still lit and the bed wasn't slept in- Nico wasn’t surprised, considering how much she enjoyed dancing and singing at the balls. Her small conjoined library, however, also had a light on, but Nico could hear light voices coming through the door. His mother’s, and a man.

 

Nico was about to push open the door to the library (Maria di Angelo was not the type of woman who got a man alone in a quiet place for anything other than strictly _business,_ and Nico knew this even when he didn't know what was the part that _wasn't_ business) when Nico heard his name, so he stopped for a second and listened.

 

 _“Nico is doing fine, I’m assuming?”_ said the deep voice in English, and Nico scrunched his eyebrows together, because no one called him _Nico_ except for his mother and sister, and why English? Italian or Venetian were much better languages. _“He’s four now isn’t he?”_

 

 _“Yes.”_ Maria’s voice was low for a woman, but it was smooth and Nico thought that when she sang it was the most wonderful thing he had ever heard. Nico was a bit biased. _“He’s grown quite a lot. You should see him in person one day, introduce yourself.”_ She chided. _“He’d love to meet you, Hades.”_

 

What a weird name. Nico shook his head, and reached up for the door handle. If they were talking about meeting him, well, that was weird, but at the same time his mother didn’t seem to be too busy and could help him get water.

 

He turned the knob, and tried to open the door. It was either stuck, or locked, and Nico pouted. He knocked.

 

Maria and the man were silent as Maria opened the door, peering down at Nico for a second before realizing who it was. “Ah! My little baby!” She picked him up, mindful of the glass he was holding, and Nico wrapped his arms around her neck.

 

He couldn’t see the man from the way she was holding him, and although he tried to turn his head to look at him, Maria kept her hand on the back of his head, forcing him to look behind her. “Mamma, I need more water please.”

 

Maria patted his back.

 

 _“He’s very well behaved.”_ The man commented.

 

Maria shot the man a fond look, although Nico couldn’t see it, _“He’s not a dog, Hades. Would you like to hold him?”_

 

Nico wiggled in her arms. He didn’t want to be held by some stranger, nu-uh.

 

 _“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”_ The man sounded panicked.

 

 _“You held him and Bianca when they were even smaller.”_ Maria said, and Nico wondered when the man held him. He hadn’t heard his voice before, he was sure.

 

 _“That was when there were more blankets than baby to hold.”_ Hades pointed out dryly, but Maria just hummed as she plucked the water glass from Nico’s hands, and set it on the table.

 

“Niccolò, Mamma’s going to get you more water.”

 

Nico grumbled and tightened his grip on her dress. Maria clicked her tongue and changed her hold on him, her hands underneath his armpits. She stared at him fondly. “Hades is going to hold you while I’m gone, okay?”

 

Nico pouted.

 

Maria shook her head. “Words, Niccolò.”

 

“Sì, fine, Mamma.”

 

Maria dropped Nico in the man’s arms, who fumbled a bit- Hades, Nico thought, either didn’t have kids or just wasn’t used to them.

 

Maria left the room, and Nico gave one last pout at her as she closed the door to the library behind her, so Nico turned to look at the man holding him.

 

He was _tall._ Taller than most adults. He also had dark black hair- a shade darker than Maria’s own- and his eyes were the same golden color that Nico and Bianca had.

 

Nico thought, _huh. That’s cool._ And that was that.

 

Nico stuck his thumb in his mouth and stared up at Hades, who seemed to be watching Nico too. “You’re tall.” Nico commented, in English, and the man gave him a small smile.

 

“I am.”

 

Maria would usually have told off Nico by now for sucking on his thumb (“You’re too old for that, Nico!” She’d slap his hand away from his mouth) but Hades seemed perfectly fine with it.

 

“How old are you?” Nico asked.

 

Hades shrugged, which was a bit awkward with Nico in his arms, his own arms wrapped around the little boy. “Really old.”

 

“How old?” Nico pressed.

 

“Older than thirty.”

 

Maria had just turned twenty six. Nico nodded his head sagely. “You are old.”

 

Hades shifted Nico from one hip to the other. “I am extremely old.”

 

Nico eyed him for a second, resting his head on Hades’ shoulder as he sucked his thumb. “You’re not trying to marry Mamma are you?”

 

Hades stopped bouncing Nico. “Are many people trying to marry your mother?”

 

Nico noticed that his question wasn’t answered, and scowled. “Uh-huh. Lots of people. They think she’s pretty.”

 

“She is pretty.”

 

Nico nodded. “She’s _extremely_ pretty.” He agreed. “But they like her because of Nonna and Nonno and that she’s a singer.”

 

“Because she’s rich and famous you mean?” Hades supplied.

 

“Yes.” Nico pulled his thumb from his mouth. “I don’t like them.”

 

“You don’t want her to marry?” Hades had really bright eyes, Nico noticed, even brighter than Bianca’s.

 

“She still likes our dad.” Nico told him.

 

Hades smiled slightly. “Does she?”

 

“She really really likes him. She says that he’s the only one she’d marry, but that they will never get married.” Nico put his hand on Hades’ face, and was amazed by how smooth it was. “Mamma says we’ll meet him one of these days.”

 

“Do you blame your father for not being there?” Hades adjusted his hold on Nico once again. Nico was right, he hadn’t held a child in a long time.

 

Nico stared at Hades, before shaking his head slowly. “Mamma says Babbo can’t be with us often, and that he feels bad.”

 

“And you accept that?”

 

Nico hummed as he twirled a piece of Hades’ hair. It was also really soft. “As long as he feels bad.”

 

Hades’ chest started moving, startling Nico, before Nico realized Hades was laughing- it was very strange and kind of wheezy, but it was a laugh.

 

“I’m glad to see you two get along.” Maria commented, and Nico turned his head to see her in the doorway, holding out a glass of water. Nico brightened, and pulled on Hades’ arms to drop him.

 

Hades did so smoothly, setting him down on the floor so he could run to Maria and grab the glass. Maria ran a hand through Nico’s hair, pulling on his curls. “So, Nico, how do you like Hades?”

 

“He’s better than the rest of your suitors.” Nico answered in Italian. Maria let out a loud laugh, which sounded as musical as her singing, and she ushered him out the door.

 

“Go to bed, child.” She rubbed his head one more time. “I need to finish talking to Hades.”

 

Nico rubbed his eyes and mumbled a goodbye, as he headed back out into the hallway. Voices still chatting loudly, but it wasn’t so bad now as it was before.

 

Nico was happy to go to bed.

 

.

* * *

 

.

 

Nico shuffled in his chair as Chiron stared into the fridge. “Are you sure you don’t want any soda? Coke? Sprite?” Chiron offered. “We have a lot of Coke.”

 

Nico didn’t like Coke that much. “No thanks.”

 

Chiron grabbed himself one and and stood by the end of the table. “You’re not in trouble, Nico.”

 

“Then why am I here?” He asked.

 

The nice thing about Chiron, Nico noticed, was that unlike everyone else he didn’t pause or hesitate.

 

“Your sister and several of our campers are going to be sent out on a Quest in a few days.”

 

Nico knew all about Quests due to the welcoming video. “B-What?” Nico sputtered. “Bianca hasn't even had any training! She never- she- that’s _stupid.”_

 

“The Hunters insisted.”

 

“The Hunters are dumber than I thought they was.” Nico fired back. _Was that supposed to be was or were? Oh, I don’t care anymore._

 

“I also questioned their judgement, but the Lieutenant was insistent.”

 

“They’re going to get Bianca killed!” Nico threw his hands up in the air, his eyes wide. "She can't fight, she's only known about being a demigod for a few days. How do they expect her to survive when the only physical thing she knows is dancing?"

 

“You could tell the Huntresses that.” Chiron suggested.

 

Nico furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head. “No, they wouldn’t listen. Why would they bother? Besides, they think I’m useless anyways- and they’ll just say they’ll train her during, which is _molto molto stupido Bianca mai-_ ”

 

“Nico.” Chiron said sternly. “Slow down.”

 

Nico took in a deep breath and sighed. “I am worried.” 

 

“I can tell.” Chiron took a sip of his coke. “Why don’t you talk to your sister?”

 

“If I can _find_ her.”

 

“Go to the Artemis Cabin and ask.” Chiron replied. “Or look around the Archery area, the Hunters enjoy archery.”

 

“Bianca hates archery.” Nico mumbled. “That and shooting.”

 

“Go talk to your sister,” Chiron prodded.

 

Nico stood up and thanked Chiron quietly for the talk, and left the kitchen. When he peered into the living room on his way out, the fire was still burning brightly, but Hestia was nowhere to be seen.

 

“I don’t deserve any of this.” Nico told himself. “Not one bit of it.”

 

Eighty years in the future, everything really sucked. _Really, really, really_ sucked. Sucked so much that it made every single party Nico had ever attended look _thrilling_. It made talking to Cristiano when he was in one of his moods seem _nice. Pleasant,_ even.

 

Nico wondered if Cristiano had died yet. He hoped not, the man was only eleven years older than him, but it was 2010. Cristiano, if he hadn’t died in the war, probably hadn’t lived until he was ninety-two. It was amazing if anyone lived past sixty, and Nonno had been rapidly approaching that point when he left-

 

But Nico really hoped Cristiano lived. Cristiano of all people would likely be the person to live till he was a _hundred_.

 

Nico passed by the Demeter Cabin, and he wondered why everything was so quiet- but then came a shout from the pavilion, and Nico realized that it was lunch time. He wasn’t really hungry, and the Huntresses would most likely be lunch. Nico decided to wait by their cabin instead. It took about ten minutes, but people gradually returned to the cabins. A few of the Hunters shot him dirty looks- _What did I even do?_ Nico wanted to demand at them- before they walked up beside him sitting on the stairs and went inside.

 

It took about another ten minutes before Bianca showed up with the Lieutenant, Nico thought her name was Zoë.

 

“Nico, what do you need?” Bianca asked in English, while the other girl scowled at Nico.

 

“Bianca, could we talk?” Nico side-eyed Zoë. “In private?”

 

Bianca raised her eyebrow, but nodded. “Sure.”

 

Bianca led him towards the back of the Cabin, where there was a second porch but no one hanging around. Nico scratched his cheek as Bianca sat on the wood, and patted the place next to her. “Come on, little brother.”

 

He joined her.

 

Bianca turned to look at him for a second before she poked his cheek, hard.

 

“Ehi!” Nico protested. “That hurt!’ He continued in Italian.

 

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you Nico.” Bianca started. Nico rubbed his cheek. She was dressed the same as the rest of the Hunters now, with her long hair tied back in a harsh braid.

 

(Bianca had always worn her hair down.)

 

“But I’m not going to let that get in the way of us leaving on a good note.”

 

“Us?”

 

Bianca bit her lip. “Well, me. I’m going on a Quest with Percy and Zoë to save Lady Artemis and Percy’s friend-”

 

“Bianca, you don’t even know how to fight.” Nico protested. “You’ve never _liked_ fighting. Why are you going on this Quest?”

 

Bianca picked at the bottom of her braid, and for however old she was now, Nico remembered that she was still twelve, younger than anyone else going on the Quest. “I’m going to prove my worth to Lady Artemis on it.” Bianca said. “It’s- it’s better than what I had hoped for.”

 

“What a lousy existence, Bianca, if heading into a situation unprepared is the best you could have asked for.”

 

Bianca grabbed his ear and yanked on it. Nico let out a howl of pain as he clutched at his ear. “What was that for?” He demanded.

 

“You’re not helping.” She hissed, and Nico thought her eyes were nearly the same as someone else’s eyes’, but whoever it was the name was escaping him in that desperate moment. “Nico, I need you to believe in me.”

 

“I’ll pray.”

 

Bianca threw back her head and let out a small laugh. It wasn’t as musical as Mamma’s was. “Nico, our father, whoever he may be, is a Greek God. Everything from Greek Mythology is real, and yet you say you’ll pray? You'll pray to a God that isn't ours?"

 

Nico stared at his sister, his hands pulling tightly at his shirt, the same shirt that he hadn’t been able to change for three days because someone in the Hermes Cabin had stolen his other two pairs. “We’re Catholic, Bianca. We’ve- there’s no reason to stop believing. If the Greek Gods exist then the Christian god has to-”

  

“We’ve just been told that God isn’t real and yet you’re still insisting?” Bianca shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “I can’t believe you, Nico-”

 

“I can’t believe you’d give up so quickly on our faith, and so easily give up your memories.” Nico retorted.

 

“My memories are _fine,_ yours are the ones that are wrong.” Bianca shot back. “You’ve been going on for the past month about time-travel and inventions and World War II; you didn’t even remember the _polio vaccine_ and you learned that in fifth grade with Mrs. McGough, I know you did because you learned the same _damn things_ as I did!”

 

“And you don’t even question why things aren’t adding up, Bianca!” Nico shouted at her. “What past boarding school? We’ve been tutored at home all our life! Who’s Mrs. McGough? I know that you had Dame Augusta teach you and several others before that, and I had three tutors as well! How come our mother and father died in a car crash when you said, before, that our father has been dead for years.” Nico took in a deep breath. “It makes no sense.”

 

“What makes no sense is why you believe yourself.” Bianca scowled.

 

 _“Bianca,_ ” Nico tried again, angry and desperate at the same time. “Where and when were you even born?”

 

“March 13th, 1998.”

 

_That again._

 

“Where?”

 

“Pilgrims Hospital, New York.” Bianca answered. “So then where and when were you born?”

 

“January 28th, 1930.” Nico’s nails bit into his hand, as he stared at Bianca. He grit his teeth. “In Venice, Italy.”

 

“You’re insane.” Bianca shook her head. “You’re absolutely insane. We're American. We're not from the 1930s.”

 

“What was Mamma’s occupation then?” Nico quizzed.

 

“She was an actress.” Bianca sniffed. “At the Roxy.”

 

Nico couldn’t stand it. “No! She wasn’t!” He grabbed Bianca by the shoulders. “She was a singer who performed for the Italian and German soldiers for the Mussolini Campaign, and Nonno was the American Ambassador and that’s why Mamma brought us over here when the War started because we had connections and things were going terrible-” He took in a deep breath. “We- We came over in 1940 to New York in May and we went all around the museums with Mamma, and then the Hotel blew up or something, and Babbo- Father he-”

 

“Nico, you’re scaring me.” Bianca said, and Nico noticed how hard his nails were pressing into her shoulders. He released her, but Bianca still had that look on her face- the one she had when Cristiano said that suitors would start to come around for her, the look of pure ‘I have no control over anything and I don’t know what to do’.

 

Nico stared at his sister for a few seconds, before dropping his head into his hands, trying not to wheeze. Bianca grabbed one of his wrists tightly, making him watch her as she dropped a small ring into his hands.

 

“Mamma gave it to me, for my tenth birthday.” Bianca said blankly. “I want you to take it, and never talk to me again.”

 

“Bi-”

 

 _“Never_ talk to me again, Nico _._  I can't handle you if you're like this. _”_ Bianca hissed, and she pulled him by the wrist from the back of the Artemis Cabin, Nico having to hastily close his hand into a fist to keep hold of the ring as Bianca threw him to the ground and left without another word.

 

Nico watched as Bianca turned towards the Cabin, where the stupid Lieutenant was giving Nico the worst possible stink-eye, and he stared down at the ring in his hand. It was ivory, he guessed, with a skull carved into it. _Way to be obvious, father._

 

But his blood was boiling and he was _so angry,_ at Bianca, at Chiron, at everything.

  
Nico sat underneath the tall trees surrounding Camp Halfblood, with the door of the Artemis Cabin slamming shut behind Bianca, and thought that he might just hate this century.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all your support guys!! you're so sweet! china was fantastic! 10/10 would recommend.
> 
> a lot of people have a lot of like distaste for bianca, which i understand man. i dont hate her but i do believe that family does come first, so her abandoning him in the books made me go "????? wtf" and like she's leaving nico, this angry and bitter child, all on his own like girl you should know your own brother better than that i have never seen anyone as like angry as i was when i was ten
> 
> also nico is like, the ten year old who would tell anyone his life story, while simultaneously being like "no, fuck u" which is totally like all the mentally ten year olds i know, so.

“You know, for a ten year old, you’re really, _really_ angry.”

 

Nico looked up from his history book, glancing down at the boy who was standing on the small slope that led up to the tree he was sitting beneath. Nico recognized him, another one of the kids from the Hermes Cabin, but he didn’t really hang out there a lot- he might have been one of those kids who didn’t have a Cabin for their parent, which would make more sense.

 

“Gee.” Nico deadpanned. “I have no idea why.”

 

The kid snorted. “Yeah, it surprised me. I haven’t seen such a shitty reaction to someone since Luke left.”

 

“Oh good, so it wasn’t just me who saw it.” Nico set down his book and crossed his arms, staring at the boy. “Who’s Luke?”

 

“Previous leader of the Hermes Cabin.” The kid- what was his name?- stated. “He basically left to become a body- or minion? They never specified- to Kronos, who’s like, the father of Zeus. Anyways, _big_ shit storm coming.”

 

“...Sounds like a really great guy.”

 

“He wasn’t too bad before you knew who he was working for.” He shrugged. “He was the best at roasting marshmallows.”

 

“That must really decrease his evil level.”

 

“Has he killed someone yet? No. Does he roast bomb marshmallows? Yes. It’s an easy choice, he’ll remain a decent person until those answers change.”

 

Nico scrunched his face. “You have a lot of faith in him.”

 

“I wouldn’t necessarily say _faith._ More like- disbelief of what he may do simply because I remember him being a nice guy. The justice for his actions will be repaid soon enough anyways, when he does something.” He dismissed.

 

“At least there’s that.” Nico said, not knowing anything else to say.

 

“You know, Di Angelo-” _Everyone knows the new kid._ “I have never seen someone with that much bad luck.”

 

Nico wasn’t denying it, the last two months of his life that he could remember had been pretty awful. “How can you tell?”

 

“I’m the son of Nemesis.” He shrugged. “I can tell when people have too much good luck, or when revenge or justice is required.”

 

“Sounds like a very telling job.” Nico scratched his arm. “Being able to meet someone and judge them on their life.”

 

“It’s not necessarily their life, per say.” He shook his head. “More like their actions. If they’re selfless, but with shitty luck, we’ll basically leave that person alone. It’ll work out. If they’re selfish, but with good luck, we’ll tear them to the ground. It’s pretty fair, isn’t it?”

 

“I don’t understand how luck can play such a big role.” Nico frowned. “Because isn’t it not really luck?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Isn’t it all just decided by the Fates?”

 

“It’s complicated.” The boy shifted legs from where he was standing, still lower on the hill than Nico. “On one hand, yes the Fates have dictated our lives. But they haven’t done _everything,_ like what clothes we’ll wear everyday, or whether we pick up a twenty dollar bill at the bus stop, or even what our death is sometimes. My mother, she’s the one who decides if those pieces that aren’t dictated by the Fates are going to be justifiably good or bad depending on who you are, your life, and so on.”

 

“That’s so- _”_ Nico’s mouth popped open, struggling for the best word. “Interesting. Scary, but interesting.”

 

The other boy laughed. “I never heard anyone say that! Usually people are scared shitless because my mother can ruin their lives. They hate to think that their actions or what they might come into contact to is determined based on how much she likes you.”

 

“I wouldn’t say that I’ve had the best luck these past couple months.” Nico commented. “It’s been the worst in my life, actually, so hearing that it can only get worse- but due to something that’s not exactly _my_ fault, is a good feeling.”

 

“The blame, you mean.”

 

“Yeah, the blame. Besides, I feel like it can’t actually get any worse.” Nico twirled Bianca’s ring on his finger, it having not left his finger since their fight two days previous. She was leaving tomorrow, and Nico had an _awful_ feeling. But it actually couldn’t get much worse, could it? Maybe she’d come back normal, although that was a farfetched hope.

 

“Don’t jinx yourself!” The boy admonished, and Nico automatically blessed himself. The boy gave him an amused look. “Is that the proper way to unjinx yourself?” He asked.

 

Nico flushed, “I’ve always done that.”

 

“Does it work?”

 

“I-I think so.”

 

“Wish I went to church often enough to not feel guilty for doing it.” The other shrugged. “Also, did I ever introduce myself?”

 

“I- uh, no, you didn’t.” Nico held out his hand, and the boy looked even more amused.

 

“Damar Abdullah, Son of Nemesis.”

 

“Nico di Angelo.” _Mamma always said to use my nickname in America if I could help it._ Nico shook his hand. “Unclaimed.”

 

“You know, don’t you though?” Damar pressed. “I can see it in your luck.”

 

“Why, is my luck that bad you assumed I know?” Nico wondered dryly.

 

“I really wonder if you’re ten with such snark like that!” Damar snorted.

 

 _Well, actually, I’m 80, but I just aged really, really well._ Nico thought. _No wrinkles or anything._

 

“Your luck is pretty bad, but when someone knows something as big as their parent, usually it kind of- glows, I guess, it’s really hard to explain.” He shrugged. “I can also see it in your face. And you hesitated.”

 

“I'm pretty sure it's Hades.” Nico said, and Damar looked really impressed for a second, before sighing. “Seems like the Big Three all broke their pact at around the same time.”

 

"That pact is ridiculous, I mean, not having kids with mortals? With how unhappy their relationships are?" Nico let out a huff. If he was angering the Gods with his comments,  _good._ Hades ruined his life, he could deal with a few snide remarks.

 

Damar grinned. “I know right? Especially Zeus, man, I’m surprised he held out for so long! But anyways, since they made this agreement, and all the Gods thought that was that, right? But then this girl shows up about five or something years ago, Thalia, and she’s Zeus’s daughter. She got turned into a pine tree, the one with the Golden Fleece on it? Yeah, that’s her.”

 

Nico turned to look towards the tree that loomed over all of Camp Halfblood. “I can’t imagine being turned into a tree.”

 

“Yeah, me either.” Damar shook his head. “Anyways, then like three years ago?- I’m bad with dates, don’t quote me on that- Percy Jackson shows up after defeating the _Minotaur,_ and he’s like maybe, eleven or something. And he turns out to be Poseidon’s kid, and he goes on all our Quests, thank God for that.”

 

“Quests are really that bad?” Nico asked, running his fingers along the hem of his shirt.

 

“I mean, the survival rate, if you’re not Percy Jackson and his friends, are pretty low.”

 

“How low?” Nico stared hard at the ground, as his fingers moved to play with Bianca’s ring.

 

Damar winced. “Oh man, your sister’s going on a Quest isn’t she?”

 

Nico didn’t answer.

 

“I mean, she’ll be fine, she’s with Percy-”

 

“How bad are the survival rates?” Nico asked once again.

 

“Out of ten, typically only two come back.”

 

That hit Nico in the gut. “Then Bianca’s going to die.” Nico gasped, as his eyes moved from the ground to stare at Damar in the eyes. “Sh- She hasn’t even learned how to hunt yet! She can’t even plait her hair by herself!” He stood up in a second, making Damar step back at the energy. “She’s _twelve!_ Why does no one understand that she is only _twelve!”_

 

“Halfbloods don’t have long lives, but Nico-.” Damar said quickly, and Nico kicked his stupid history textbook that he stole from Westover Hall, and screeched under his breath, _“Odio questo fottuto stupido secolo!”_

 

“Nico, she probably won’t die-”

 

“And I probably won’t get killed if I marched right up to Zeus and I demanded him to adopt me!” Nico hissed, and wow, that was kind of ironic wasn’t it. “Just because Percy’s with her doesn’t mean he’ll protect her!”

 

“Percy is a decent guy, he won’t let your sister die-”

 

“Percy’s more worried about his girlfriend than anything.” Nico shook his head, and did another kick to his book, which sent it flying off into the trees a little ways away. “Why should he care about some Huntress?”

 

“Because that’s just who he is.” Damar insisted, and Nico gave him a desperate look.

 

“People are never as good as you think.” Nico turned to walk into the bushes, before he remembered that he was being impolite, and turned back to Damar and said, “See you later, thanks for the talk.”

 

Nico didn’t even listen to Damar’s response, if he even had one, before he ducked behind the trees until the downslope of the hill could no longer be seen.

 

“I hate this century.” Nico mumbled, as he pushed branches out of the way, towards where he knew his book had flown. “People die of stupid things, and they don’t go to church, and the only good thing that came out of this is that there’s a stupid polio vaccine, but everything else is _completely_ useless, and the music is bad, and their slang words are stupid, and their fashion sense is strange. And Bianca-”

 

Nico’s heart hurt to think of Bianca, but he wasn’t sure if it was due to worry, or just complete anger and bitterness. Maybe it was both (it was probably both) but he couldn’t talk _about_ her without being worried, because she was going on this stupid Quest that didn’t need her, or talk _to_ her because she was stupid and couldn’t remember anything, and _dio sa_ wasn’t the River Lethe supposed to work? Why couldn't Bianca just remember? 

 

Why couldn't Nico just forget?

 

Nico wondered what would have happened had the river drained him of his memories like it did Bianca, and he shivered, thinking of the faces in its stream and the abandoned shoes on the riverbank. He was happy he remembered, but it was almost like a curse. _Here’s something you loved that you’ll never get back._ His mind told him. _Go be bitter about it._ Of course Nico would be bitter about it. Nico was bitter about a lot of things.

 

He was bitter about Bianca, and 2010, and all the stupid kids at Camp, the lawyer who brought him to Lethe and Westover Hall, and Westover Hall because that was _awful,_ and Cristiano for abandoning him (and the rest of his family) for the War, even though it was mandatory draft, and his mother-

 

Nico wasn’t bitter towards his mother. Maria di Angelo would never be something Nico hated, or blamed, or anything along those lines, because even she had-

 

Nico closed his golden eyes and felt them become warm. He rubbed the back of his hand against them, but that did nothing to stop his tears from starting to fill up his eyes or his nose to sniffle.

 

_Mamma._

 

He never even got time to mourn her, from being pulled to the hotel, to Westover and the stupid culture shock, to now Camp, and that wasn’t fair to Maria.

 

Nico continued pushing his way through the trees, but he passed right by his book, and just continued aimlessly through the forest, heading deeper and deeper into it.

 

Maria was only thirty-two when she died, still as brilliant and bright as ever, and Nico knew how much she loved his father, and how much his father loved Maria and Bianca and him- even if he couldn’t remember some of those memories because of Lethe- and they even left Italy for America, because Babbo had wanted Maria safe, and his kids, and with the war brewing in Europe it just wasn’t safe. And Babbo was nice to Nico when he was younger, he wasn't terrible- but because of him Mamma was killed, and Nico and Bianca were dunked into the Lethe on his orders, left to rot in a hotel for seventy years until they were needed again-

 

Nico let out a short laugh, leaning against a tree, not caring as he scared away some birds that were resting in a nearby tree. “No one would have died if we were in Italy.” Nico told himself, and he felt the truth lying right next to his dread in his stomach. “It could have still been 1940, and Mamma would be fine, and Bianca wouldn’t be changed, and even stupid Cristiano and Nonno and Nonna would be alive-”

 

“You sound so sure of that.”

 

Nico’s head flew up, eyes wide as he stared at the ghost in front of him. Even though Nico had never seen one before, it was just like he had imagined; transparent and slightly levitating.

 

“Who are you?” Nico demanded, and suddenly he felt very tired, exhausted, like his body was being dragged towards the ground.

 

“King Minos.” Minos said, and smiled widely. Nico took one look at his smile and fingered the mythomagic cards that were tucked in his pocket. “What’s wrong, my Lord? Do you know my name?”

 

“Nothing’s wrong.” Nico replied quickly to the ghost, mind reeling quickly as he wondered the logistics of it all. “I do know you.”

 

“You do?” Minos kept his still wide smile on. “Who am I then?”

 

“The king who sacrificed his people to the Minotaur, in the labyrinth. You’re a judge of the dead.” Nico intoned, taking a step back until his back brushed against the trunk of a tree. “Why are you here?”

 

“You need training, my Lord. Training this camp can’t give you.” Minos grin dropped into a sneer. “A child of Hades will never be accepted no matter where they go. If you come with me, I’ll teach you all about your powers and how to fight.”

 

 _A child of Hades will never be accepted no matter where they go._ What a damning sentence that Nico knew was true.

 

“And what do you get out of this arrangement?” Nico asked, because this was all too convenient, showing up perfectly just when he wanted to run away, but by a man who had killed and felt no remorse about it. _Will I end up like that too someday?_

 

“Cooperation, power, take your pick.” Minos disregarded. “I don’t need you as much as you need me.”

 

_Is that true?_

 

“So how about it, my Lord? Deal?” Minos held out his ghostly hand, and Nico eyed it for a few long seconds.

 

“Deal,” He said, but didn’t hold out his hand to shake.

 

Minos clapped his hands together, but they didn’t make a sound. “Will you follow me into the labyrinth then?”

 

 _So I can be killed by the Minotaur?_ Nico thought, until he remembered what Damar had told him about Percy killing the Minotaur. _Oh great, now at least I don’t know what I’ll be facing in there. Fantastic. Perfect. Just what I wanted, inside the stupid labyrinth with only some kind of malicious ghost who won’t tell me his plan. I love America._

 

“Will I be able to come back here?” Nico thought of Bianca, who was leaving the following morning, and the exhaustion came to rest on his shoulders, making his impeccable posture slouch under the non-existent weight.

 

“No, but-”

 

“I won’t go into the labyrinth-” _I don’t want to die of a trick just yet._ “-until my sister comes back from her Quest.”

 

“But my Lord-”

 

“There’s no reason why you can’t do my training here until then, is there?” Nico stared directly at Minos, and if Minos had been alive he would have felt the cold that was admitted from the boy, the same way it did with his father, but he could see the light dusting of frost that adorned the tree branches and grass around Nico.

 

(It would always be a fact of the universe, that no matter when or how, Nico would always be the most gifted child of Hades, no matter what anyone would ever believe. Minos was glad that he was the one who had gotten to the boy first.)

 

“It’s simply more convenient in the labyrinth.” Minos soothed.

 

“We can hold off on convenience until she returns.” Nico stated harshly. “When will we start?”

 

“Right now, my Lord.” And Minos pulled up three ghosts from the ground, and said pointedly to Nico, “First lesson that all soldiers learn: _run.”_

 

Nico didn’t go to the famous Huntresses vs. Camp Halfblood capture the flag that night, and when he didn’t show up that night for bed, even with the Harpies prowling, no one noticed. Not even Damar, who still felt guilty over their conversation.

 

It wasn’t hard to miss someone you were purposefully ignoring.

 

* * *

 

Nico almost didn’t catch the group in time before they left.

 

He had twigs stuck to his jacket and there were new holes in his pants that weren’t there before. Multiple smudges of dirt and mud covered his face, but that didn’t matter, considering Bianca wasn’t even looking at him to worry about where he had gotten them from.

 

“I said don’t talk to me.” She hissed at him in Italian, but she kept on fiddling with the strap on her backpack, and biting her lips (which Nonna had drilled out of her from a young age, and Nico hadn’t seen her do it in years) so Nico stood stubbornly next to her even as the Lieutenant glared right at him.

 

“I’m just saying goodbye.” _Hopefully for not the last time._

 

“I don’t care.”

 

Nico’s gut clenched. “Stay safe.”

 

“Are you questioning my abilities?” She demanded.

 

 _Yes because you have none that will keep you alive on this._ “No.” He lied. “I’m just worried.”

 

“You shouldn’t be.”

 

“It’s normal to.”

 

“Yeah, but since when have you ever been normal?” Bianca shouldered her backpack but kept her eyes facing down, not glancing at him once.

 

It stung. “Bianca-”

 

“My team’s leaving, Nico.” She said blandly, and left him without a second glance.

 

Nico wanted to yell at her, to make her look at him, but he stayed in the same place, watching her uncharacteristic braid swing behind her.

 

Damar walked up towards him awkwardly, the first time they had talked since the previous night, and told Nico, “She’ll be fine.”

 

Nico knew that she really wouldn’t be. But what could he do? What, really, could he do to stop her from going on this Quest? Bianca was just as stubborn as Nico and Maria were. He knew she wouldn’t be changing her mind, and no one else wanted to switch Bianca for some poor other kid, because they knew the risks. Chiron and the campers would rather have some poor Huntress who wasn’t one of them die, while the Huntresses needed Bianca to prove her worth somehow, so no one would step forward to take her place, and if she died it would be a shame, but she also had only joined less than a week previous, so it really didn’t matter that much since they didn’t know her.

 

So Nico watched her leave, in his desperation and lack of sleep forgetting that he was going to go up to Percy and demand that the boy watch out for her and keep her alive.

 

_“Percy is a decent guy, he won’t let your sister die.”_

 

Nico hoped Damar was right.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this for sometime in the future maybe in this au but im still unsure, so take my drafts:
> 
> “I am fucking tasteful, unlike you guys.” Nico sniffed, and grabbed the bottle of pinot noir. “Now let me drink my fucking wine.”
> 
> “Your fourteen.” Frank pointed out. 
> 
> “And I’m going to drink you all under this fake beech wood table.” Nico declared, glaring at both of them from his chair. “Sit your ass down and drink your fucking beer.”
> 
> “We’re only seventeen!” Jason protested, eying the beer. “It’s illegal!”
> 
> “So’s murder, but am I in jail yet?” Nico shrugged. “No, I didn’t think so. Just drink before I kick you in the balls.”
> 
> “I wonder what you used to be like, when you were younger. Probably cuter.” Frank mumbled.
> 
> “Still capable of out-drinking you.” Nico said bluntly. “I wasn’t kidding though. Drink your shitty pee-water or I swear to every mighty being I will force it down your throat.”
> 
> Frank chugged it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s/o to those who comment, you make my day so much ! i appreciate you all for sharing your thoughts, it's really great!!!

Nico stayed up as high as he could in the tree, scowling down at the skeletons grappling at the trunk. “Stop it!” He yelled, throwing a pinecone at them, and hitting one in the ribs. The skeleton didn’t even notice, which made Nico even angrier. “I said stop it!” He threw another one. “I’ve been up here for two hours now!”

 

Minos let out a laugh as he stood (well, levitated) a couple meters away from the skeletons, looking even more amused the longer Nico was stuck in the tree.

 

“Minos!” Nico demanded. “Make them stop!”

 

“You haven’t finished your training yet, my Lord. You have to call them off.” Minos told Nico calmly, as he repeated the same thing as he had the past hour and fifty minutes, but Nico could tell how amused the King was, the stupid weasel.

 

“I’ve been yelling at them!” Nico waved his hands, and dropped another pinecone on the group below him, managing to hit a skeleton dead-on on its skull, and watched as the head wobbled for a few seconds on its spine before falling off. Nico grumbled under his breath as the body of the skeleton continued clawing at the tree. “It’s not working! Let me get down without you trying to whack me, you stupid things!”

 

The skeletons didn’t stop. “You’re not really _commanding them,_ my Lord. You must be firm, decisive-”

 

Minos sighed when Nico broke off a long branch and began hitting them with it. “My Lord, we can’t move on to the ‘fun’ things until you’ve mastered this. A Lord who can’t command their own servants is not a Lord to be respected.”

 

“You called them though!” Nico pointed out.

 

“I relinquished control over them.” Minos said pleasantly. “They’ll follow anyone.”

 

The skeleton that had lost it’s head picked it up and lobbed it at Nico, hitting him smack in the gut. Nico let out a small _“Umph!”_ and comically wheeled his arms for a few seconds before falling backwards towards the ground, landing on his back. He was immediately being swarmed by skeletons, who began pelting him with the pinecones that he had thrown at them.

 

 _“Minos!”_ Nico yelled, and Minos let out something that sounded like a cross between a snort and a cackle as he refused to call off the skeletons. “Minos _, giuro al signore,_ I’m going to skin you! Call them off!”

 

“You have to call them off yourself, my Lord!”

 

Nico covered his face with his arms, and he could feel them skeletons begin to kick him. _“Allontanarsi da me voi fastidiosi pezzi di osso morto!”_ He swung his leg out and kicked two of their legs out from underneath them, but the other two continued hitting him. _“_ I, _che_ , command you idiots to stop!’

 

The skeletons stopped moving, and Nico looked at them for a second, staring at them in wonder as he relaxed his arms from his face, before letting out a loud screech as a pinecone hit him in the mouth.

 

 _“Minos,_ I swear to the _Lord-”_

 

_._

 

* * *

 

.

 

“So this-” Nico paused. “-thingy, you can travel through shadows?”

 

“Yes.” Minos nodded his head.

 

“And it’s immediate?”

 

“Not exactly-” Minos dismissed one of the skeletons, and Nico watched in fascination as the bones sunk into the ground, and then he could just feel them _disappear._

 

 _Aces._ Nico thought. _That’s so cool._

 

Minos continued. “You travel through shadows- so you’re limited to only places that have them that are dark enough, and or big enough, to fit you or be able to cover you. It’s similar to teleportation, except again with the limitations on what shadows you can use.”

 

“So where can you go using this?” Nico wondered. “Like, is it only within the United States?”

 

Minos had given him the rundown on where the Gods could go- really they had control of only the US, and outside of it was run by basically every other God of any major religion (Minos had ignored Nico’s questions and theories about Christianity), but if this shadow traveling could bring him _anywhere-_

 

“Well, theoretically,” Minos commented dryly. “Anywhere in the world, but-”

 

“Hypothetically,” _Thank god for that stupid dictionary or I wouldn’t be able to keep up with Minos and his vocabulary._ “I could go to, say, _Italy?”_

 

“Hypothetically. But since you’re outside the Gods’ influences, the farther away you go the more it drains on your powers. Worst scenario, you try to go to Italy, and you die about a hundred kilometers into the Atlantic.”

 

“But best scenario, I get there.” Nico pointed out, bouncing on his heels.

 

Minos gave him a look. “Right now, you can’t even raise a skeleton.”

 

“I’m working on it, it’s only been three days!” Nico defended himself.

 

“ _Some_ people have managed to summon a skeleton on their first try.” Minos snottily pointed out.

 

Nico rolled his eyes. “We can’t all be geniuses or desperate.”

 

“Well, the person I’m thinking of was _neither_ of those.”

 

Nico scowled. “Whatever. Can we try the shadow teleporting?”

 

 _“Shadow travel.”_ The King corrected. “Shadow teleporting sounds stupid.”

 

“And shadow traveling sounds very dignified, yes, I see what you mean Minos.” Nico kicked the wildflowers underneath his feet.

 

Minos raised three skeletons and without another word sent them at Nico.

 

 _“Minos, I swear-”_ Nico tripped over his feet, and the skeletons picked up more pinecones from the ground and lobbed them at him. “Stop it! Lord, oh my-”

 

.

 

* * *

 

.

 

“There’s two ways of shadow traveling, but I want you to do the first way, since it’s the hardest. You need to imagine pulling shadows towards you, and wanting to be _right_ where I’m standing.” Minos dictated.

 

“You’re four meters from I, though, isn’t that too close?” Nico frowned.

 

“It’s from _me,_ ” Minos said haughtily. “And it’s much harder than you would think, boy.”

 

“Shut up. That’s all the directions you can give me?” Nico frowned, as he stared up at the sky. It was already seven and the sun had gone down. “Nothing else?”

 

“Each person describes it differently.” Minos answered. “Just wrap yourself like a cape and make the shadows bring you towards where you want to go.”

 

“But the shadows aren’t technically alive, they can’t think. How can they move me?”

 

“How do plants have feelings, according to the satyrs?” Minos countered blankly. “Just do it, my Lord.”

 

Nico shrugged, and imagined pulling the shadows towards him.

 

It wasn’t actually that hard, he realized, when the shadows formed around his feet and started making their way up his body. _I’m very glad I’m not claustrophobic._ He thought, as they wrapped around his neck and covered his head. It was pitch black, and Nico felt like he was floating. _I need to go where Minos is-_

 

A horrible feeling overcame Nico’s stomach, and he wanted to double over. _Something happened, oh Christo I think something happened to Bianca._ He thought, and he didn’t know how he knew.

 

The shadows felt his hesitation and his nausea and tried to get away from him, but Nico panicked. “No, stop!” He told them, and then he pulled them back to him, but they were already dragging him somewhere, pulling him through the rest of the shadows in the world, and Nico couldn’t stop them until they released him and fell away from his body.

 

Nico rolled onto his side from where he had fallen on his back, and threw up everything he had in his stomach. He stared up at the sky where the sun was bright in his eyes, and felt something heavy settle on his body.

 

 _“Bianca.”_ He worried. “Oh my Lord, Bianca.”

 

And then the heavy feeling pushed down farther, and Nico wasn’t able to move anymore. He was so _tired,_ his eyes couldn’t stay open, and he was unconscious before he even knew it.

 

Minos cursed from the other side of the world. “This bastard will never amount to anything at this rate!” He screeched, and he would never know how wrong that was. “Where is that child?”

 

.

* * *

.

 

“Faster, Christiano, faster!” Bianca screeched, laughing from the backseat.

 

Nico, who had won the privilege of sitting in the front with Christiano, had an equally as wide grin on his face, as the butler hit the gas and sent them spiraling down the road faster. The speedometer hit 75kph before Christiano slowed down to go into a turn on the small road.

 

“Signora, you know the car can’t go any faster.” Christiano said, fondly, as he ran a hand through his hair as he accelerated once more.

 

“I want to go in a car that can go _100_ kilometers per hour.” Bianca huffed.

 

“Why not go 200 then?” Nico asked. Cristiano gave him a look that said ‘don’t encourage her’, but Bianca had already squealed and said “Definitely!” that there was no choice in the matter.

 

“When a car comes out that can reach 200 kilometers an hour, I’m sure you’ll be able to drive in it.” Cristiano reassured her.

 

“I hope that’s sooner than later.” Bianca commented.

 

 _I hope that’s when it’s only her in the car._ Nico thought.

 

.

 

* * *

 

.

 

When Nico came to, the sun was setting once again.

 

He felt a crick in his neck first, and then the dryness of his eyes and the scratchy feeling of his throat. It took him another ten seconds to feel the coldness that was in his stomach, and then his eyes widened.

 

He rolled back onto his side and threw up once more, even though there was nothing in his stomach but bile. When that was done, he struggled to his feet, clutching his stomach, and looked around.

 

_First of all, something happened to Bianca._

 

 _Second of all,_ Nico looked around at the small grassy park that he was in, with a large city wall directly in front of him, and thought, _I have no idea where in the world I am._

 

He wobbled towards the wall, wondering if he could find any signs. He could see one barely a hundred meters from him, and he resolutely wandered towards it, brushing off as much dirt as he could from his clothes.

 

Nico didn’t see any people around him, and his heart beat faster as he approached the sign.

 

**西安城墙**

**XI’AN CITY WALL**

 

“Oh, no.” Nico said. “ _Dio,_ no.”

 

_I don’t speak Chinese. Don’t the Chinese hate Italians? I think they do. It’s probably not the case now? I hope it’s not? I know no Chinese whatsoever._

 

“I’m screwed.” Nico said aloud, staring up at the sign.

 

_Wait a second how am I going to get back? What happened to Bianca? I have no money, no idea how to get back or know anyone here or anything, dios, if it wasn’t for Bianca I’d go straight back to Italy if given the chance, Giuda si sdraiato traditore-_

 

Nico turned on his heel and began walking along the wall. The lanterns were beginning to light up, and Nico kept his head angled towards them as he dragged his feet. They were really pretty, especially with the lights strung along the top of the city wall. Nico wished he could enjoy them if he wasn’t _panicking_.

 

“I’m going to die out in the cold-” Although, admittedly, it was a nice 25 at the moment. “And I’ll never see anyone I love again-” But all of his family was pretty much dead though so maybe that wasn’t a bad thing? It’d really suck though because then no one would know where his body was and he couldn’t have a Catholic funeral, or be buried in the family graveyard, but- “And I’ll _starve_ to death-” That was actually the sobering truth.

 

“I could try shadow whatevering out of here?” He questioned himself, all too aware though of how much it tired him out and how awful the feeling was. No, he decided after a moment of thought, he’d rather even take a plane or a boat or something.

 

As he rounded a corner, he was assaulted by the bright skyline of the city. Xi’an wasn’t even the capital city, he knew, but there was tons of people on the streets, stoplights directly large flows of traffic, but these buildings were five, ten stories tall, with a couple more in the distance looking about twenty or thirty, and _wow._

 

This was the first time he had been really impressed this century.

 

People flowed around him, giving him side glances but not too many- Nico figured it was because he wasn’t Asian, considering the other much, much more obvious looks a group of what appeared to be Swedes got, with their bright blond hair and tall builds.

 

Nico briefly going over to talk to them, but decided against it. A tour group would be no help whatsoever, except probably make things far too complicated; with needless calls to people who probably wouldn’t care. It wasn’t like he could travel _with_ them either, with no money. He’d just be intruding.

 

 _Besides, the only telephone number I know is Anthony’s,_ Nico thought, _and that’s on a piece of paper back at Camp._

 

Nico began walking towards the city proper. _If I’m going to die somewhere, it’ll be well lit and where people will notice before my body starts to stink._

 

He disappeared into the crowds.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long wait! it wasn't that I had abandoned this story, quite the contrary, because I spent basically every day since I posted the last chapter thinking about ways to continue this story, but life got in the way. a lot of illness, death, and school.
> 
> good luck to everyone for finals, I hope you realize that this was my way of procrastinating for them. im also fucked tbh, gl guys.
> 
> also i have no beta and often times im too lazy to really check over the chapters, so if there's mistakes...

In all honesty, if there was something Nico was incapable of, it was not standing out.

 

Back in Venice, if he wasn’t being looked at for being Biagio Di Angelo’s grandson, then it was because he was Maria Di Angelo’s son, or being the godson of Lady Giovanna, or any other reason ranging from “a cute little boy” to “looks like he could tear my kidneys’ out and eat them” (the latter of which was more common in America). Nico was so used to it, part of him didn’t even register the reason some of the looks he received from the locals.

 

Multiple peddlers came up to him, asking for things in Chinese, but Nico shook his head quickly and walked away, hurrying into a dark shadow to try and hide from the more persistent ones. _Am I really such an obvious target?_ It happened about five times before he even reached the night market of Xi’an.

 

The night market was a booming place, stalls set up and draped with cloths and merchandise and food, and the crowds were just large enough for him to walk through undetected, without even catching the gaze of the pickpockets. It wasn’t like he had anything on him anyways, besides the clothes on his back and the sword that no one really seemed to have noticed.

 

Nico barely glanced over the wares they were selling, stomach beginning to growl at the smell of the food, but Nico was in no place to beg or steal.

 

He made his way through the night market and ended up walking through the streets for an hour, wandering in and out of the residential section before he came upon a small temple. It was pure luck, but his feet were beginning to drag, and if he hadn't found it he would have braved sleeping under a tree in a park somewhere.

 

It’s doors were shut, and the lights were off. There wasn’t a soul around. Nico thought it would have been around one or two AM, but he wasn’t sure. The old wooden door of the temple (most likely Buddhist, he would have guessed, from the signs) looked scratched up by animals, and even the parts of the temple he could see looked like it had seen better days. Nico turned over the lock that was on the outside of the gate, and winced. It was badly rusted over, the metal probably incapable of opening now without the key.

 

Nico eyed the gate. If he gave a running start, he could probably scale his way up it.

 

That was, as long as the wood didn’t give out.

 

Nico stepped back a couple steps into the street, and took off. He hit it half way, and his fingers managed to catch the top edge. Nico gave a small grin as he wrestled his way to the top and dropped himself over into the courtyard.

 

He let out a deep breath, before taking a look around.

 

Just like the lock had suggested, the temple wasn’t in use anymore. It was deserted, no one taking care of the over grown weeds or fixing the broken paved stones. The door to the temple was shut firmly, but Nico could see a couple broken slabs of wood on the door he could use to let himself in. It really was a tiny temple on the inside after he had grappled with the door for a few minutes before managing to break the rusted over doorlock. It was _extremely_ dusty, and without use for a good thirty years at least. There were a couple of knocked over chairs in the first room, and a small statue, and a couple of mats Nico would not want to use for the life of him, but that was all.

 

“At least it’s inside and warm.” Nico muttered to himself. “And the roof hasn’t caved in.”

 

A small voice towards his right answered him. “The insolence of children! No respect towards their elders or sacred spaces!”

 

Nico jumped, his eyes wide as he grabbed his sword.

 

A skinny, frumpy looking ghost peered over his nose at Nico. He was dressed in simple robes, and had his hair tied back in a painfully tight ponytail. “Well, aren’t you going to apologize?” He asked him indicatively.

 

Nico didn’t release his sword. “I’m sorry?” He attempted, and the ghost shook his head.

 

“What kind of apology was that? For breaking and entering and disrespect for your elders, you just say, ‘I’m sorry’? That’s all?”

 

“You’re a very strange Buddhist.” Nico commented without thinking.

 

The ghost glared at him. “I’m a Confucian! The officials sent me here after I disagreed with them and told me that I could learn from the Buddhists, like there’s anything those old fools could teach-”

 

Nico watched the ghost go on with his rant for a good minute, before interrupting. “I’m sorry, sir, would it be alright if I spent the night here?”

  
The Confucian sniffed his nose and spared a glance towards Nico, before nodding his head. “You may, thank you for asking.”

 

Nico relaxed.

 

“You’re the first human I’ve seen here for a long time.” The Confucian noted, his beady eyes peering closer at Nico. “And the only one who has ever seen me. You don’t look like a Han either- a foreigner? Your Chinese is quite impressive.”

 

“I’m not speaking Chinese.” Nico blinked. “I’m speaking Italian.”

 

“Italian? I’ve never heard of that before.”

 

Nico furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s weird. Maybe this is something else that has to do with Father- it probably does. That would make sense.”

 

The ghost didn’t seem to interested in Nico’s ramblings. “Anyways, strange child. Tell me, how is my country doing? I cannot leave the twice forsaken grounds, I am incapable of doing so.”

 

The boy struggled. “I’m not too sure about recently, I… haven’t been able to keep up on the news. I know that you dethroned the Emperor, and now are a-”

 

“We don’t have an Emperor!” The Confucian interjected. “What about the Mandate-”

 

“The Mandate was no longer necessary, since most people decided that it did not help them successfully rule the country in the first place.”

 

The ghost looked like he needed a good drink. “Then what was the _purpose.”_ He bemoaned. “All those years of history, of running the country, of providing successful trade and political alliances, all down the _drain.”_

 

“Not necessarily.” Nico tried to calm him, running a hand over his numb legs to try and return feeling to them. He felt grimy and sticky due to the heat and humidity. “I don’t know from what time you are from, but China is equally as successful as it was when you were alive.”

 

“Are you sure?” The Confucian sniffled.

 

“Quite.”

 

The ghost left Nico alone after that, satisfied with the information.

 

* * *

 

Nico was able to sleep for twelve hours before nature called and his stomach became too much to ignore. It took another hour for him to find some peaches that grew on the property that weren’t rotted, and another twelve hours and second night to finally decide to try and attempt to go back to Camp, even though he wasn’t too sure how to accomplish that.

 

The Confucian had left Nico mostly alone up until that point, and was staring intently at Nico as he tried to remember how to shadow-travel. It wasn’t necessarily that he had forgotten the steps, he was just a bit to frightened to do it properly, too worried that he would mess it up again.

 

“You look like you are in dire need of medicine.” said the ghost dryly, as Nico scrunched up his face and tried to will himself to call up the shadows.

 

Nico gave him a sharp look. “It’s hard.” He defended himself.

 

“Hard doing what? Thinking?”

 

“Trying to go home.” Nico crossed his arms, before hearing his Nonna’s voice in the back of his head telling him _‘don’t do that!’,_ and he uncrossed them quickly.

 

“Is this day and age so advanced you can travel merely with the power of thought, or is this more witchcraft like those of the Buddhists?”

 

“I am not Buddhist, but I guess it is similar-”

 

The ghost shook his head. “Of course.” He muttered. “Those _Buddhists_ and their- well, get on with it then, what are you waiting for?”

 

It was true, Nico desperately needed to go back, and there was still a bad feeling leaking into his gut telling him that something was wrong with Bianca. He had to do this, there was nothing holding him back.

 

Nico thanked the ghost for his generosity, and much to the amazement of the Confucian, was surrounded by shadows that were drawn from the corners of the room, and disappeared.

 

“Children these days.” He shook his head. “Practically evil spirits by themselves, with powers like that.”

 

* * *

 

Nico was unceremoniously dropped in the clearing where he and Minos practiced, and Nico was so thankful to be back he nearly kissed the ground.

 

(Nearly. It was unsanitary and he wasn’t _that_ far gone.)

 

He sat back on his knees and his eyes trailed over the familiar trees, marked with stray slices from swords or burnt from Minos’ more creative training attempts. But the trees were quiet. There wasn’t a stray bird chirp, or a tree shaking in the wind. The woods were silent, eerily so, like something had happened that Nico was privy to.

 

His stomach hurt further.

 

He got up on his feet and headed towards the Camp, his feet dragging for a reason he didn’t know.

 

Nico swallowed, pushing back his hair from his eyes blindly, and stumbled through the bushes and over rocks. If anyone had caught sight of him, they didn’t make a sound. The archery area was deserted, and even the Cabins seemed to be held in a state of dread.

 

Nico wandered into the road between the Cabins, and wondered what he looked like. He was covered in dirt, with bags underneath his eyes, paranoia settled into his limbs, and his hand clutching the handle of his sword. His face was probably gaunt and pale, and his eyes sunken.

 

There were people in the Cabins, some watching him with wide eyes, but no one came to greet him as he dragged his feet towards the Big House.

 

There were whispers and laughs quietly following him, saying _“That’s where the weird boy was”_ and _“Got lost in the woods it seems, whata loser”._ Nico thought the phrase ‘grin and bare it’ was appropriate.

 

By the time he made it to the Big House, he thought his legs would give out. The distance he traveled was too much- it wasn’t possibly with how tired he was, it was a miracle he was able to make it all the way back to Camp, much less walk himself to the infirmary. Nico knew that if he hadn’t been eating regularly and training with Minos before he left, he would have ended up dying somewhere in the Pacific ocean.

  
Chiron greeted him with a nervous look on his face, but didn’t get to ask Nico any questions. Nico dropped to a kneel to the carpeted floor, his sword clattering next to him, and passed out before his body even met the floor.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end of part one, I'm also proud because this story is nearly one year old and I finally finished it? ish????? i've never finished a story before I feel like popping a champagne bottle or something to celebrate
> 
> also this is what finals does to me. FUCK math man.
> 
> _________
> 
> Thank you guys for all your support! I appreciate each and everyone of you!

Nico woke up in a small hospital bed with thin white blankets, his arm hooked up to an I.V, a non-stop soft _beep_ echoing in his ear, and the news that Percy and his entourage would be arriving back at Camp sometime within the week. This was happier news.

 

The only doctor on night duty at the infirmary firmly denied Nico any chance of leaving the hospice. This was the worst piece of information Nico could receive.

 

“You literally passed out not even a day ago from extreme exhaustion and malnourishment,” the doctor told him blankly. “There’s no way in Hell you are leaving this bed.”

 

“I’m feeling better.” Nico attempted in vain, and the blond only gave him a look and checked his vitals.

 

“Where were you anyways, Di Angelo?” The doctor questioned. Nico didn’t have a clue as to what the boy’s name was. He would have (maybe) felt bad, except he didn’t know a good eighty percent of the people at the camp.

 

“China. More specifically, Xi’an.” Nico turned to face his doctor, who was standing next to the side of his bed.

 

The boy gave him a bemused look, eyebrows furrowing. “China.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You were gone. To China.”  


 

“It’s quite hot there this time of year.” Nico added, and nearly grinned at the tired look on the guy’s face. The night shift was never kind.

 

“How did you even get there?”

 

“Not too sure myself, really. Might be a bit of my powers just kind of,” Nico struggled for the phrase. “Acting up?”

 

“You must be someone big’s kid to end up transporting yourself to China. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to do that, not even the Hermes kids, and their dad is literally the God of Travelers.”   


 

“Yeah. I feel bad for them living in their Cabin. Too many people.”  


 

The doctor gave Nico a strange look. “You know who your parent is though, don’t you?”

 

“Yes.” Nico admitted.

 

“Is it not one of the Twelve?”

 

If Nico hadn’t played Mythomagic with Anthony, he wouldn't have known who the Twelve were. He was grateful all that knowledge came in handy when talking to people like Hestia and the doctor. 

 

(He grew up learning about the Romans anyways, with their slightly different classification. That was why he was conversational and academically capable in Latin, not Ancient Greek.)

 

“No.” Because Hades wasn’t considered one, for some strange reason, but it made sense that Hades would be the unlucky number thirteen. Maybe that was where the unluckiness started from.

 

The doctor hummed as he marked off something on his notes, but Nico could feel his eyes on him. “Strange.”

 

“You’re not a child of Poseidon or Zeus then. We’ve had those two.”  


 

Nico could feel the doctor’s eyes staring intently at him, as his mind figured things out. Nico had no idea how he was capable of this, on a night shift, somewhere between three and four in the morning.

 

“But Hades doesn’t just have children. It’s not typical. He is the most likely to stick to his vow of having no more human children.”

 

The doctor, Nico thought, was a bit too clever to have noticed all this, especially when Bianca couldn’t even connect the dots herself (most likely due to Lethe).

 

“He did stick to his vow.” Nico stated, and watched as the doctor took his wrist and checked his pulse manually.

 

The doctor looked as if he almost wanted to concede that Nico wasn’t the child of Hades, but maybe it was the way Nico held himself, or the dark rings underneath his eyes that made the doctor ask, “You are the child of Hades, aren’t you?”  


 

Nico nodded.

 

“But Hades didn’t stick to his vow.” The boy released Nico and sat down on the chair next to his bed. “That’s not possible, unless you’re born before World War II.”

 

 _I look really great for an eighty year old don’t I?_ Nico wanted to say. The doctor may pass this off as some weird kind of three thirty am fever dream, it didn’t seem possible. Nico wondered if it would really be worth it to say _I was born January 28th, 1930, I was held captive for seventy or so years in a hotel, I don’t know what a computer is, and I’m so glad Mamma forced me to learn English or else I would have probably died or something multiple times. I am one incident away from running away without Bianca back to Italy, or killing myself._

 

So instead, Nico shrugged. “It’s kind of complicated.”

 

The doctor gave Nico a look that Nico interpreted as _you didn’t tell me anything and now I’m curious,_ but as soon as the doctor realized that he didn’t have any more reason to wait around, he excused himself and walked towards what Nico believed to be the infirmary’s office.

 

Nico sunk farther down into the cold bedsheets and tried to think about how he was going to get home.

 

 _Obviously shadow travel._ Nico thought. _It’d be worth it even if I did end up passing out, especially if Bianca was there with me._

 

But then Nico wondered _what will we do when we get home?_   


Nico covered his face with his hands. _Mamma is dead. Nonno and Nonna are dead. I don’t know what happened to the houses, I was the heir and Bianca would have inherited the rest. My birth certificate probably says “presumed dead on it”. I don’t know how different things are._

 

_I don’t know anyone._

 

Nico wiped away a stray tear angrily, trying to think it all through.

 

It wasn’t what he was used to.

 

Nico was _ten years old._

 

Less than four months ago, Nico could remember living in Venice, 1940, in a large manor with his grandparents during the summer, and the townhouse in the winter. His mother was a popular singer, he could easily picture her performance at the opening of the Royal Academy, because she was that important. He had three tutors, his own personal maid, and his closest friend was his correspondent Liliane who lived in Lyon and came to visit every other holiday.

 

It was a good life.

 

Nico couldn’t help but mourn it.

 

(If the doctor noticed Nico sobbing hysterically into his pillow, he didn’t mention a word.)

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as Nico heard that Percy was back at Camp, he sloppily wrapped a couple bandages around his arms where the I.Vs were put in, put on his freshly laundered clothes and ratty shoes, and bolted out of his hospital bed.

 

No one would have been able to stop him from doing that.

 

Nico nearly tripped down the front steps of the Big House, but he kept his pace fast towards where he could hear a large amount of people. His gut was screaming at him, telling him to _move faster,_ and his lungs were about to kill him with the far too soon strenuous activity that made his exhausted limbs ache more.

 

By the time Nico had arrived at where Percy was- _Percy was there, so was the Lieutenant, and Annabeth, but not Bianca-_ he had worked up a small amount of sweat. The crowd parted like the Red Sea in front of him, until he was directly in front of Percy.

 

Percy, who was staring at him with a stricken look, a panicked one, with his eyes wide and sad and _Christo,_ Nico didn’t want to know what happened.

 

“Where’s my sister?”

 

Percy bit his lip and moved to put a hand on Nico’s shoulder. Nico shrugged it off, his voice coming out higher and words slurring together, “Percy, where’s my sister?”  


 

“She-” Percy hesitated. “She didn’t make-”

 

Nico felt the world crash around him, a cold drenching his heart and his throat constricting. “Y-You were supposed to protect her.”  


 

“She sacrificed herself-”

 

“You were the _leader,_ she- you were supposed to keep her safe.”   


 

“It wasn’t my choice, believe me, Nico-” Percy wrapped his arms around himself, and Annabeth hovered over his shoulder. The entirety of Camp was watching them now, as Nico’s world disappeared.

 

 

“She was _twelve.”_ Nico bit out, “She was only _twelve,_ the youngest out of all of you- and she-” He hiccuped.

 

 

“Bianca did it to protect us, she’s a hero.” Annabeth interjected, but Nico gave her a look of pure steel, despite the fact that his eyes were turning red and puffy.

 

  
“It doesn’t _matter_ if she’s a hero!” Nico stepped back on his feet, trying to get as far away from them as possible. “It- She isn’t coming back! That won’t bring her back!”

 

“Nico-”

 

Nico turned on his heel and ran. The rest of the campers easily let him go, watching him with pitying eyes as he made his way back towards the clearing that he had arrived in only days previous.

 

America and the Gods had brought nothing but death and pain, destruction and ruin of everything Nico had known-

 

_If Babbo hadn’t brought us to America- if we had never met Babbo, Mamma and Bianca would still be alive. My life would still be fine. I would still be in 1940._

 

Nico ran faster.

 

* * *

 

 

Cristiano, for all of his faults, was a spectacular shot.

 

“Why are you so mad?” Nico asked him, as Cristiano shoved a new load into the Beretta and unloaded it onto the targets.

 

It was a nice spring day- just warm enough to give the impression that summer was coming. Nico’s French tutor had let him out early from his lessons, citing “a truly awful headache from the pollen” as the reason. Nico didn’t really care, he was able to loosen his tie and run outside to the shooting range adjourned to the manor’s estate.

 

Cristiano grit his teeth as he ran out of bullets. “It’s nothing that concerns you, my Lord.”

 

Nico frowned. “But it must be truly awful if you’re so angry.”  


 

“Do you really want to hear my problems?” Cristiano asked him, exasperated, turning on his heel to grab a different gun from the shelf. “You’re nine anyways, Master Niccoló, it’s not something you would understand.”

 

The boy pouted. “You could still try and explain.”

 

Cristiano hit the target dead center for his next shot, and lowered his gun. “It’s not pleasant news.”  


 

Nico blinked.

 

“They’ve made a mandatory draft for the war.” Cristiano said. “I have to leave.”

 

“You can’t!” Nico interjected, rising from his spot on the bench. “You’re a private servant, they can’t force you!”

 

“It’s truly a mandatory draft, my Lord. If your grandfather wasn’t so old, I’m sure he would be called in as well.” Cristiano hit the next three targets in succession, before moving on to clay birds that sat on a high wall built specifically for the purpose. “I don’t want to go, but as the only eligible male in my family, I have no choice.”

 

Nico sniffled, “Does Mamma know?”

 

“She doesn’t.”

 

“She’ll be mad.”

 

“I know, but even she can’t go against Signore Mussolini.”

 

Cristiano hit every clay bird on the wall, before switching hands and hitting the targets again until the bullets ran out.

 

He stared at Nico for a second, before dropping his gun on the table and crouching down in front of the nine year old. Cristiano grabbed Nico’s arms and pulled him into a hug, dropping his chin on top of Nico’s head. “Niccoló,” he told him softly. “I won’t be gone forever.”

 

“You could die.” Nico’s voice was muffled into Cristiano’s shoulder. “You could get hurt or die, or end up someplace in Prussia-”

 

“But I’ll make it back here, after the war is over. It shouldn’t last very long. By then you’ll be a teenager too, and I’ll be able to teach you how to drive.” Cristiano soothed.

 

Nico hiccupped and sniffled at the same time, an ugly sound. “I j-just don’t want you to go.”

 

  
“I know, Niccoló. I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to.” Cristiano soothed. "I'll see you after war, Niccoló, don't you worry."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Either Minos could sense Nico’s desperation and anger, or he had a great sense of timing.

 

Nico ran into the clearing where they had been practicing with little fanfare, harsh lines of tears trailing down his red face. Minos stared at him, maybe apologetic, maybe tired, and asked him shortly, “Are you ready for the labyrinth?”

 

Nico nodded his head quickly, not thinking about how unsure he was about going in the first time, or who Minos was. “O-Okay-y.”

 

Minos eyed him for a second, before tossing him a short sword. It was similar to most heroes’ swords, but was a bit shorter and lighter, maybe due to Nico’s thin build.

 

“It will be nonstop training in there, my Lord. There will be nothing stopping you from hurting yourself, or anyone about to protect you. It’s all on you.”

 

It had been like that ever since Nico had taken a dip in the river Lethe.

 

“I-I can handle it.” Nico didn’t know and didn’t care if he could.

 

(Bianca was his sister, his beautiful, talented older sister who made the best comments under her breath when Nonno wasn’t listening, who could unlock any door in under a minute, whose bones he didn’t even had to bury because he didn't _have_ them, and no place for him to bury them, because he couldn't go home. Nico wasn’t going to be able to get back to the family cemetery anytime soon, and he didn’t even know where she _died.)_

 

Minos turned on his heel and led Nico deeper into the forest, towards the tall rocks and caves.

 

Nico followed with his sword pointed towards the ground, and his hand wiping away as many tears as it could, with his sleeve already drenched.

 

_She didn’t deserve that._


End file.
